ECCO opens high-tech leather cutting plant
BREDEBRO, DENMARK
ECCO Leather today opened an advanced high-tech leather cutting plant next to its tannery in Xiamen, China. It is destined to be a centre for leather cutting excellence of the ECCO Leather Group.
The tannery in Xiamen was established in 2008, the cutting activity started in 2014.
The new plant is amongst the most advanced cutting plants in the world with state-of-the-art technology and in terms of environmental footprint.
Factory design, cutting systems, and machinery have been chosen to ensure minimum usage of energy but maximising the utilisation of leather material.
In continuation of ECCO Leather’s longstanding efforts to minimise the environmental impact, the new plant has been equipped with highly efficient rooftop photovoltaic solar panels, providing renewable energy, which not only meets the demand of its most important customer that the factory must be energy-neutral; the cutting plant, having covered its own energy needs, exports surplus energy to the ECCO Tannery. It is therefore a net energy producer.
ECCO Leather runs several programmes to reduce water and energy consumption as well as waste to minimise the impact of its activities on the environment. Once these developments have been tested successfully, they will be rolled out to all the Group’s units.
The opening today was performed by Dieter Kasprzak, Chairman of ECCO Leather, and Ms. Zhang Binna, Vice Director of Tong´An District.
Further information:
Contact Director of Corporate Responsibility and External Communication Søren Kragh Pedersen at press@ecco.com.
About ECCO
ECCO is one of the world’s leading shoe brands, combining style and comfort. ECCO’s success is built on products with a great fit and top-quality leathers. ECCO is a highly responsible company that owns and manages every aspect of the value chain from leather and shoe manufacturing to wholesale and retail activities. ECCO’s products are sold in 99 countries from over 2,250 ECCO shops and more than 14,000 sales points. ECCO is family-owned, founded in Denmark in 1963, and employs 21,300 people worldwide.
ECCO in Xiamen, China:
Situated around 35 km from Xiamen island in southern China, ECCO’s Chinese shoe factory was established in 2005. Just like ECCO’s other tanneries, the adjacent tannery, which was added in 2008, is Gold rated by the Leather Working Group.
With the building of ECCO’s new high-technology cutting plant, ECCO China employs approx. 3,200 people. The Building surface of the new Cutting Plant is 7,134 M2, of which solar panels cover 4.569 M2, which potentially can create 959,450 KWH/year, more than three times the expected energy consumption of the new Cutting Plant.
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