Epic Group opens India’s first net-zero garment campus

Epic Group inaugurated its Trimetro Manufacturing Campus in Khordha, Odisha, on April 29, 2026, and put a hard number on its bet: $100 million for India’s first fully net-zero carbon and net-zero water garment manufacturing campus. The 40-acre site is designed to turn out 20 million garments a year, with 10,000 jobs and women expected to make up 80% of the workforce.

What makes the campus matter is not the rhetoric around sustainability, but the hardware. Epic says the factory complex runs on onsite and offsite solar power, sustainable biomass, battery storage, energy-efficient systems and advanced water conservation and recycling. It also leans on super-insulated buildings, stormwater infrastructure and biodiverse green space, all of which are meant to cut the kind of climate disruptions that can idle a plant, spike utility bills or expose workers to punishing heat.

That climate logic is no longer abstract. Better Work says the global apparel industry is worth about $1.77 trillion and employs roughly 90 million workers, which makes every lost hour of production expensive. In India, nearly nine in 10 garment workers surveyed in 2026 said extreme heat inside factories was making them sick, while a June 2026 report found rising temperatures and humidity can cut productivity by as much as 10% in factories supplying major brands.

Epic is trying to answer that pressure with design rather than slogans. The company says the campus reached commercial production about 15 months after foundation laying, a fast turnaround for a facility this size, and it positions the site as a model for how manufacturing can grow while using less water and less carbon. That is the real test for climate-ready factories: whether insulation, rooftop power, recycling systems and better drainage can translate into steadier output, lower operating risk and fewer stoppages when weather turns hostile.

The project also sits inside Epic’s wider financing and climate targets. In June 2024, the International Finance Corporation backed the group with a $100 million package, split between a $70 million sustainability-linked loan and a $30 million green loan, to support expansion in Bangladesh and the new India facility. Epic signed the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action on August 28, 2022, and says it aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions per garment by 65% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline.

The bigger question is whether suppliers working on thin margins can copy this model without buyers willing to commit to long-term sourcing. Solar arrays and water systems help only if the commercial side of the business is built to match.