Sun Grup brand Ekoten, one of the leading knitted fabric exporters in Turkey and Europe, continues to invest in sustainability. The company, providing 55% of their electricity needs from solar energy with the solar power plant it has established in its knitting factory, announced that it has zeroed the carbon emissions resulting from the electrical energy purchased in 2020 with the I-REC certificate. Ekoten has documented this process in cooperation with SOCAR Energy company and announced that it has received the I-REC (International Renewable Energy Certificate) Certificate, an international certification which certifies that the electricity used is produced from renewable energy sources.
Being among the members of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability platform, Ekoten disclosed that energy management throughout the company has been certified with the ISO 50001 standard since 2012. The company also stated that they have voluntarily reported their carbon emissions to the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) since 2012. Reaching an agreement with SOCAR Energy for 2021 and 2022, Ekoten declared that it will continue to use I-REC certified green energy.
Ekoten: “We are leading the textile industry”
Ekoten General Manager İshak Aydın Öztürk said; “We believe that creating a better future for all of us is only possible with sustainability and lead the textile industry”. Öztürk stated that they offer both environmentally and socially sensitive solutions with the fabrics they produce with sustainable materials and methods.
Ekoten Machinery and Energy Manager Taylan Tugay shared the following information about sustainability strategies; “In the last 10 years, we have reduced 3 thousand 250 TEP (Ton Equivalent Oil) and reduced greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 19 thousand 400 tons of CO2 with our 35 Energy Kaizen Projects. We realized 2 of 35 projects that made a significant contribution to energy saving as VAP (Efficiency Enhancing Project) Project with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources”.
Founded in 1995, Ekoten has been continuing their corporate activities within the Sun Grup since 2000. While the company is developing the production processes within the framework of sustainability, they have taken these important steps in the following areas as a member of the Global Compact: Gender Equality, Decent work and economic growth, Industry, innovation and infrastructure and responsible consumption and production.
What is the I-REC Certificate?
The internationally valid IREC Certificate proves that electricity is supplied from renewable energy sources and is accepted by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol includes standards applied all over the world for the measurement and management of emissions arising from the operations of corporates. The International I-REC Standard is a renewable energy certification system standard that keeps track of the electricity produced from renewable energy sources and enables the registration of renewable energy rights on behalf of the end consumer. Today, every facility with 20 kW and above can register to this system in more than 30 countries of the world within a month at the latest.
Foton is the I-REC Renewable Energy Turkey Platform of The International REC Standard Foundation that gives the I-REC Certificate. According to the Foton Platform 2021 3rd Quarter Report, 72 companies signed up for the IREC Platform in the first 9 month period, commissioned in 2021. The amount of IREC issuance realized on the platform by the companies registered to the platform was 4.5 billion kWh, and the process of issuing certificates was 1 billion kWh.
RECS International is a non-profit foundation representing electricity market players. Working with their members from Europe and around the world, they continue to work for creating an open and transparent demand-driven renewable energy market facilitated by widely accepted and harmonized tracking systems.
