From left: Assistant Manager Environmental Sustainability Demith Gooneratne, Executive Environmental Sustainability Sampath Aruna, Mihila General Manager Chamara De Silva, The CarbonNeutral Company Client Relationship Manager Vivian Frost, The Carbon Consulting Company Chief Executive Officer Sanith de S. Wijeyeratne, The Carbon Consulting Company Manager Sustainability Solutions Lakmini Senadheera



Asia’s first CarbonNeutral apparel manufacturer and the county’s iconic green factory – the Hirdaramani group’s Mihila, was recently recognized as Garment Maker of the Year at the World Textile Awards.  

Headquartered in London, the mission of the World Textile Awards is to provide a global platform for outstanding textile companies to share their successes and promote excellence at all levels of the industry. Formed of a combination of textile professionals and individuals with experience across events and awards competitions, the awards are committed to promoting excellence across the textile industry worldwide and rewarding the best companies, irrespective of their size or geographical location.

“Being recognized as the Garment Maker of the Year is a pinnacle of our many recent achievements,” said Mihila Factory General Manger Chamara De Silva.
“We were set up with a vision of demonstrating that manufacturing could be carried out in an environmentally-friendly and sustainable manner. And I believe that this award aptly demonstrates that we have fulfilled our founding mandate. We are a preferred manufacturing partner for many leading global brands, and our internationally recognized sustainability credentials proved that we are carrying out our business in an environmentally-sustainable manner.”

“The recognition of Mihila as the Garment Maker of the Year has far reaching ramifications,” said The Carbon Consulting Company (CCC) CEO Sanith de Silva Wijeyeratne.

“This award fundamentally puts to rest the never ending debate among top industry executives, that sustainability and business success were mutually exclusive. Many senior executives often look on environmentally sustainability as an unnecessary, expensive or worst irrelevant aspect of their manufacturing business. The holistic view that was adopted by the Hirdaramani group, in building and running a sustainable eco factory has now yielded dividends many fold. We, at CCC, are proud to partner the Mihila team in their ongoing efforts to push the boundaries of corporate environmental sustainability.”

The award coincided with the recertification of the factory as a CarbonNeutral manufacturer by CCC’s Client Relationship Manager Vivian Frost.

Speaking on the occasion, Frost went on to say, “We would like to congratulate Mihila in maintaining its CarbonNeutral certification for a fourth year in a row. Having visited the Mihila factory and seen first-hand the efforts the Hidramani group is making in reducing its environmental impact, we can see that it is truly setting a great example for sustainable manufacturing in Sri Lanka.”

CCC is a leading provider of Integrated Sustainability Solutions such as Carbon & Water Footprinting, Carbon Asset Management, Biodiversity Assessment and Life Cycle Analysis. CCC also provides mitigation options, facilitates the purchase of ethical Carbon Offsets and consults on corporate sustainability management strategies such as carbon, water, waste and energy management to ensure that corporates are able to take accurate stock of the impact of their operations on the environment. CCC is the regional partner of the CarbonNeutral Company, one of the world’s leading providers of carbon reduction solutions.