The Greater Bay Area: Finishing with a Flourish

Jeanologia was founded in 1994 by Jose Vidal and his nephew, Enrique Silla, growing over the subsequent years into an innovation and human values-based business. Coupling these values with a strong background in denim finishing consultancy, the company evolved into a technology provider for sustainable textile solutions.

Today, Jeanologia is a leader in the worldwide transformation of the textile industry using disruptive technologies, including laser and eco systems, that enhance productivity, reduce water and energy consumption and eliminate damaging emissions and waste.

At present the company has operations in 60 countries around the world and more than 35% of the five billion pairs of jeans produced globally every year are made with Jeanologia technologies. A global team of more than 200 people from all backgrounds makes this possible.

Considerable Change

Since Hong Kong’s heyday as textile-central in Asia, things have changed considerably for the city. China’s emergence as a global economic powerhouse has shifted production to the north.

Jeanologia aims to tap into that history to drive what the company's Division Director, Asia, Jordi Juani, hopes will bring deep and lasting change to a notoriously polluting industry. By providing technology and know-how, he hopes to help it transform into an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective 21st century success.

A significant component of that change will undoubtedly be the Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative which, through a process of integration and co-operation, aims to turn China's Peral River Delta region into a giant geographical hub of high-tech, high-value economic innovation and production.

The GBA initiative aims to create a Pearl River Delta powerhouse linking both the Hong Kong and Macao SARs, plus nine other Guangdong cities. The transformation of the region – which encompasses a massive market of 70 million potential customers with a combined GDP of US$1.6 trillion – is part of a global vision connected to China’s ambition of creating an inter-linked world through its wider Belt and Road Initiative, This aims to establish long-lasting economic ties, not only with its closest neighbours, but far beyond in the wider world.

Born in a Storm

The beginning of Jeanologia’s Hong Kong adventure – when it opened the Tsuen Wan facility in April of 2020 – came at a tumultuous time for Hong Kong. Juani is however, confident that having landed in Hong Kong as the perfect storm of social disturbance, pandemic and worsening Sino-US relations were shaking the city’s economic foundations, the company has the vision, passion and staying power to succeed.

​​​​​​​Jeanologia offers a diverse range of technologies to textile manufacturers targeting different elements of the production processes, but united by their environmental benefits. Juani said: “They include lasers, such as the Flexi, Twin, Nano and Compact series, eco lines featuring ozone and nano-bubble solutions such as G2, e-flow H2Zero and Big Mac and pollution-free and disruptive technologies like Environmental Impact Software (EIM) and eMark. They are all designed to guarantee substantial water energy and chemical savings, while eliminating harmful processes for workers and the environment, even in the most severe industrial settings, For example, water use can be cut from as much as 70 litres per a pair of jeans to a small glass of water.”

GBA Partnerships

Despite its fledgling status in the city, Jeanologia has already solidified a partnership with one of Hong Kong’s most famous textile companies, the Crystal International Group, which began life in the 1970s in a single workshop with a few sewing machines and knitting looms producing sweaters.

Today Crystal has around 20 self-operating manufacturing facilities spanning five countries and a workforce of approximately 80,000 delivering almost 500 million pieces a year to the best-in-class apparel brands worldwide.

Juani says he hopes this type of partnership can be replicated across the GBA in the coming years as Jeanologia helps create a new industrial revolution in the textile industry, featuring more sustainable, innovative and fashionable products at reduced cost and time to market.

He said: “In the next few months or so when the Covid-19 pandemic further calms, governments, regulators, brands, designers, fashion buyers and even shoppers will likely change their mindsets towards sustainability as they reopen and resume ‘normal’. As the powerhouse of global fashion production, Asia will be among the first to feel and face the rise of green or sustainable manufacturing when more environmental protection perimeters will be embedded in the product design and development.

“This is particularly true for the GBA where the governments have been gearing up their efforts to further move up the value chain and going green has become a mainstream for both export and domestic sales operations.”