MAS Holdings will today officially open MAS Intimates Thurulie, its eco-manufacturing plant located at MAS Fabric Park, Thulhiriya, Sri Lanka. The plant will manufacture lingerie for the UK high street retailer, Marks & Spencer (M&S).

MAS Intimates Thurulie is the first lingerie manufacturing facility producing goods for M&S which has been designed to reduce carbon emissions and aims to become carbon neutral.

It features the biggest installation of solar panels to date in Sri Lanka, which will provide around 10% of the total electricity required for the plant. The remaining electricity will be mini-hydro, sourced through a ‘green’ power agreement that MAS pioneered for Sri Lanka earlier this month. The facility will also use ‘net-metering’ allowing the MAS fabric park to utilize the solar electricity it generates when the factory is not in operation.

Dian Gomes, Group Director of MAS Intimates, expressed pride at his company’s union with the M&S “green” initiative:

“Our relationship with M&S is based on the values we share. With Thurulie this long and productive relationship finds new ground. When M&S launched Plan A, MAS was the first to commit to the construction of an eco-apparel manufacturing facility. It was a revolutionary venture – as always, MAS has forged ahead and set new standards. Theglobal environmental crisis cannot be ignored. MAS is proud to be a pioneer in finding solutions. Thurulie is just the beginning of our eco journey.”

Sir Stuart Rose, Chief Executive, Marks & Spencer said:

“The MAS factory is a truly exciting development in clothing production. It really has been a partnership of two like-minded companies, M&S and MAS, and will trial a completely new approach to manufacturing and set standards for others to follow. Not only has it been designed to be carbon neutral, use less electricity and less water than a similar scale clothing factory, it will also produce great quality lingerie products – what our customers would expect from M&S – whilst ensuring its workers are treated well through its leading standards in employee welfare.”

In 2007, M&S announced ‘Plan A’, its company-wide ‘eco-plan’ in response to big issues such as climate change and sustainable sourcing. One of the commitments within Plan A is to support the development of ‘green’ factories with its suppliers. M&S has supported the development of the MAS Intimates plant through advice from its store development team in the UK and sponsorship of the solar panels and the architects’ design costs. Features of the new MAS Intimates plant include:

• The use of extensive daylight to help light the premises;

• Energy efficient lighting and LED based task lights reduce the energy used for lighting;

• Low energy cooling systems to replace air conditioning. Other cooling measures include ’green’ roofs (roof with vegetation on top), cool roofs (roof with high solarreflectivity), and strategically positioned courtyards with wide arrays of greenbelts to cool the microclimate. ‘Eco’ bricks were also used in construction to help maintain a cool interior.

These combined features will enable the facility to save around 40% on electricity compared to a similar scale factory. It will also reduce its water usage by approximately 50% by capturing rainwater to be used in toilet facilities, waste water management systems and ‘low-flow’ fixtures.

Other notable features include:

• Part of the construction is on stilts to avoid excavation of the earth during construction and to aid natural rain flow;

• Cement-stabilized-earth walkways and roads;

• Anaerobic digestion sewage treatment facility with bio-gas captured for the kitchen.

MAS Intimates Thurulie will also become the world’s first ‘lean’ and ‘green’ manufacturing facility, designed for MAS’s lean manufacturing standard MOS. Based on the renowned Toyota Production System, the MAS Operating System (MOS) is geared towards the elimination of waste both in material and process in order to achieve higher efficiencies.

MAS Holdings CEO Deshamanya Mahesh Amalean declared that “We have always excelled in ethical business practices and MAS Intimates Thurulie brings in theenvironmental focus to complement our excellent work in social sustainability. Today MAS has set a tough global benchmark to show what the future of manufacturing will be – ethical, efficient and sustainable.”

MAS Intimates Thurulie will initially employ 520 people and it expects this figure to rise to 1,300 employees by 2010.