The Indonesian batik is a cultural product recognized as Intangible World Heritage by UNESCO. However, its production by small and medium enterprises has been raising environmental problems, including water pollution. Since water is vital for humans and batik production, deterioration of its quality affects the people, ecosystem, and batik sustainability. The water scarcity and the emerging concept of circular economy show that a regenerative system that focuses on resource efficiency is essential to replace the current linear production system. A previous study was conducted to examine the role of water in batik production. However, a complete picture on the water use in batik production is required as it will imply to water sustainability, from the experts' perspectives. Therefore, this study identified the factors influencing water use for batik production based on perspective of the experts in combination to craftsmen's experience using a qualitative Delphi method with seven experts on batik and water technology. The result indicates identified challenges that influence the water use for batik production, and four aspects that need to be addressed in order to realize water friendly batik production. Finally, three key factors of actor, system, and technology were concluded if the circularity of water use in batik SMEs will be realized.
Keywords: Batik production; Water-friendly; circular economy;; small and medium enterprises; water use.
© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.