Major German sportswear manufacturer Adidas expects its industrial biomass consumption in Asia to double to around 1mn t/yr in 2025 from about 500,000t/yr in 2024.
This is based on estimated biomass energy consumption figures by 50 partner factories owned by its Asian suppliers, according to Adidas' director of climate and energy, Dipjay Sanchania, who was speaking at a panel discussion during the Argus Biomass Asia conference held in Singapore over 25-26 February.
The factories use biomass from agricultural residue, including rice husk pellets and palm kernel shells, for power generation. Most of Adidas' partner biomass-consuming factories are in Vietnam, followed by Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Pakistan, he said.
The biomass energy is generated to power localised electric boilers, moving away from centralised large coal-fired boilers typically used for heating, according to Sanchania. The heat is required to produce steam, which is used to add chemicals and dyes onto fabrics.
Adidas' suppliers had already phased out coal-fired boilers by the end of 2023, when more than 48 boilers were replaced or modified to use biomass or natural gas fuels. The firm is on track to phase out coal use in its supply chain by the end of this year.
Retail company Nike is also using biomass to replace the use of coal in its supply chain. Total energy consumption of the company's partner factories was at around 6,000 GWh/yr, according to Nike's renewable energy director Sasank Goli, who was at the same panel discussion. He said around 50pc of that energy is biomass-fired, with 25pc from natural gas and the remaining 25pc from "thermal power", which likely refers to coal.
One of the ways he had procured biomass was through a joint tender with several other factories. But he had difficulty trying to secure long-term agreements with biomass suppliers at fixed prices, because there was uncertainty of future prices in the market. "Biomass vendors did not have certainty as to how much future demand would be there," said Goli.
