Cassava new price cycle: [2] Going green to stay competitive

Green investment to enhance competitiveness

Tay Ninh is Viet Nam’s largest cassava starch processing hub and serves as the driving force behind the country’s cassava industry. The province is home to more than 65 processing enterprises, forming a large-scale production, processing and export value chain. In 2025, cassava starch exports were valued at nearly USD 1 billion, accounting for approximately 60-65% of the country’s total output.

As international markets impose increasingly stringent requirements on carbon emissions, environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, and product traceability, Tay Ninh’s cassava industry is accelerating its green transition. The sector is positioning environmental protection as a cornerstone for strengthening competitiveness and achieving long-term sustainable growth.

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As one of the industry’s pioneers, Tay Ninh Tapioca JSC regards environmental investment as an investment in the future. The company has built a wastewater treatment system integrated with biogas recovery, using the captured gas to fuel its starch-drying system and malt-production boilers. This helps reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. After biogas extraction, wastewater undergoes further biological treatment before being discharged. By-products such as cassava pulp and peel are also reused as raw materials for animal feed production, gradually advancing the company’s circular economy model.

At the same time, the company is conducting greenhouse gas inventories, assessing the carbon footprint of its products, and adopting international standards such as ISO 14067 to meet the increasingly stringent requirements of international customers.

According to Vo Thi Linh Phuong, Director of Tay Ninh Tapioca JSC, sustainable development can only be achieved by balancing economic efficiency, environmental protection and social responsibility. To accelerate the green transition, the company hopes for greater access to green finance, incentives for technology upgrades, and support for deep processing and by-product utilization. She also stressed that environmental regulations should remain stable and follow a clear implementation roadmap, enabling businesses to make long-term investment decisions with confidence.

Adapting to global environmental standards

The green transition is also gaining momentum among other cassava starch processors in the province. Dinh Khue One Member Co., Ltd. has invested in an automated wastewater monitoring system, installed a biogas recovery system to fuel starch-drying operations, and continues to upgrade its wastewater treatment facilities to comply with increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements.

According to industry representatives, international buyers now often assess a company's wastewater treatment system and compliance with environmental standards before evaluating product quality. This reflects a growing reality: a company's competitive advantage depends not only on the quality of its cassava starch, but also on its ability to meet sustainability requirements.

However, the green transition also presents significant challenges. Since the National Technical Regulation on Industrial Wastewater (QCVN 40:2025/BNNMT) came into effect, the cassava starch processing industry no longer has a sector-specific wastewater standard. Given that wastewater from cassava processing has characteristics distinct from many other industries, and that processing plants typically operate for only seven to eight months each year, applying a single regulation across all sectors could substantially increase investment and operating costs for wastewater treatment systems.

Businesses are therefore calling for a stable regulatory framework with an implementation roadmap that reflects the industry's production characteristics. Such an approach, they argue, would help achieve environmental protection goals while enabling enterprises to strengthen their long-term competitiveness.

According to Nguyen Dinh Xuan, Deputy Director of the Tay Ninh Department of Agriculture and Environment, as Viet Nam works toward its commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the green transition has become an inevitable requirement for the cassava starch processing industry to maintain its export markets. In addition to strictly enforcing environmental regulations, the province will continue to strengthen automated environmental monitoring, enhance post-inspection activities, and encourage enterprises to invest in cleaner technologies, reuse treated wastewater, utilize by-products, and improve energy efficiency.

In reality, importing markets are placing increasing emphasis on ESG standards, carbon footprints, product traceability, and sustainable development. In this context, the competitiveness of Viet Nam’s cassava industry will no longer be determined solely by production volume or cost, but increasingly by its ability to comply with international environmental standards.