Assessing the Environmental Impact of Textiles and the Clothing Supply Chain

Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu

• Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780128197844
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Assessing the Environmental Impact of Textiles and the Clothing Supply Chain, Second Edition, is a fully updated, practical guide on how to identify and respond to environmental challenges across the supply chain. This new edition features updates to important data on environmental impacts and their measurements, the sustainable use of water and electricity, and new legislation, standards and schemes. Chapters provide an introduction to the textile supply chain and an overview of the methods used to measure environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy footprints, and a lifecycle assessment (LCA) on environmental impacts.

This book will be a standard reference for R&D managers in the textile industry and academic researchers in textile science.

• Provides a holistic view of the sustainability issues that affect the textile value chain
• Explains ways to calculate the textile industry's use of resources, its impact on global warming, and the pollution and waste it generates
• Reviews key methods for the reduction of the environmental impact of textile products and how they are implemented in practice
• Includes methods for calculating product carbon footprints (PCFs), ecological footprints (EFs) and lifecycle assessments (LCA)

1

Introduction to sustainability and the textile supply chain and its environmental impact

Abstract

This chapter deals with the introduction to sustainability and reviews the entire supply chain for textiles and the clothing sector in terms of various processes from fibre to finished products and their environmental impacts. It also investigates the environmental impacts of different stages in the life cycle of textile products from the cradle to the grave.

Keywords

Energy; Environment; Fertilizers; Insecticides; Life cycle; Natural; Pesticides; Production; Synthetic

1.1. Introduction

Sustainability is being practised for many years in various industrial sectors including textiles and clothing. Concern on sustainability is increasing in a rapid pace in the textiles and clothing sector. There are umpteen number of definitions one can find from the literature on sustainability, still one of the most referred ones is from the Brundtland Report, which was published in 1987. According to this report, ‘Sustainable development is the kind of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ ¹ . Definitions or meanings for sustainability differ from both the people who define and the contexts and also importantly differ from various industrial sectors. The concept of sustainability revolves around three important dimensions or pillars, namely, environmental, social and economic. Sustainability or the sustainable development has to be a holistic approach that considers all these three pillars together. The ideology and the concept of sustainability has to begin with a broad scope for the industrial level and should finally be narrowed down to the product level considering all the phases of a product's life cycle. Today there are many definitions or concepts that lack this holistic approach, which makes the whole exercise of sustainability defeated.

When it comes to textiles, sustainability is being practised for a while, and as of today, it is practised in the industry as one of the essential business means. It is rare to see a company or a brand that does not practise sustainability in its business agenda or policy. The awareness of sustainability in the textile industry is certainly there and, of course, the reasons and motives of practising the same differs. No product can be made without any environmental brunt in this industrial era; however, what causes the difference is whether the brunt is necessary and this can be at a bare minimum level of possibility. A sustainable textile product is one that is made with the holistic consideration of environmental, economic and social aspects in the entire life cycle of a textile product.

Every product begins its life cycle at the raw material extraction stage, i.e. the cradle stage, and passes through various other stages, namely, manufacturing, distribution and use, before the cycle ends at the disposal (grave) stage. All the stages through which the product passes have an impact on the environment, as every industry has a dedicated supply chain for the manufacture of products and each part of the supply chain is responsible for a range of environmental impacts. Every individual consumes and disposes of a large number of products on a daily basis so the environmental impact increases with population growth if sufficient resources are available to support production.

When this is reduced to the micro level for a single group of products such as textiles, the problem becomes more acute. Although other products are also responsible for damaging the environment, textiles are particularly significant because of their wide range of use.

Consumers use and dispose of many textile products at different times according to their purchasing power and needs. The consumption and disposal of textiles therefore rises as the population grows and becomes more affluent. This chapter deals with the basics of sustainability and reviews the entire supply chain for textiles and the clothing sector in terms of various processes from fibre to finished products and their environmental impacts. It also investigates the environmental impacts of different stages in the life cycle of textile products from the cradle to the grave.

1.2. Environmental sustainability

Environmental sustainability is one of the main pillars of sustainability and it includes the consideration of all the aspects pertaining to the environment when producing a product, such as the brunt on the environment in terms of its resources consumption and polluting the environment itself.

Environmental sustainability includes the consideration of reducing the consumption of all finite resources such as raw materials, energy, water and so on. This also includes the usage of renewable resources while consuming the above-mentioned elements. Major drivers under environmental sustainability are

• ❖ raw materials,
• ❖ energy consumption,
• ❖ water consumption,
• ❖ waste water discharge or water pollution,
• ❖ soil or land pollution,
• ❖ emissions to air,
• ❖ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or carbon footprint,
• ❖ hazardous waste management,
• ❖ toxic and hazardous chemicals management, etc.

Environmental considerations need to be enforced throughout the entire life cycle of a product from the raw material stage to manufacturing, distribution and mainly consumption stage, which includes the consumer use and disposal stages. The awareness of the environmental brunt is increasing, and these days, environmental sustainability is diversified into many spheres such as energy sustainability or footprints, water sustainability or footprints and chemical sustainability or footprints.

1.3. Social sustainability

All the three pillars of sustainability are intercon...