The textile industry is one of the largest industrial sectors in the world. The EU textile industry remains a SMEs-based industry. The life cycle of textiles includes raw material acquisition, fabric production, garment manufacturing, transport, use, end of life: disposal, reuse, recycling, valorisation. Due to a large number of products around the world manufactured, used, and disposed of, the textile industry has a big environmental and social impact.
What does the textile sector include?
The textile sector is a very broad sector and includes the entire life cycle of articles made of textiles. This includes the growing of natural fibres, the manufacturing of synthetic fibres, preparation and spinning of textile fibres as well as textile weaving and finishing of fabrics. Further, clothing, manufacture of made-up textile articles, manufacture of leather and related products, manufacture of articles of fur, etc. are included in the textile sector.
Also, the collection, recovery, recycling, and valorisation of textile wastes and all operations related to them make up a part of the textile sector.
What is the importance of the textile industry in the EU?
The textile industry is a very diverse sector that plays an important role in the European manufacturing industry and especially in the economy and well-being in many regions of Europe.
There are 185000 companies employing 1.7 million people (6% of the manufacturing European sector) generating a turnover of €166 billion. The sector in the EU is mostly based around businesses of very small and small sizes of fewer than 50 employees.
What is the life cycle of a product or service?
The life cycle is the ‘Consecutive and interlinked stages of a product (or service) system, from the raw material acquisition or generation from natural resources to final disposal. Life cycle stages include acquisition of raw materials, design, production, transportation/delivery, use, end-of-life treatment and final disposal.’ (ISO 14001).
The life cycle of textiles includes raw material acquisition, fabric production, garment manufacturing, transport, use as well as end-of-life stage: disposal, reuse, recycling or valorisation.
What is a life cycle assessment of a product?
Life-Cycle-Assessment is a technique of analysis based on the assessment of the environmental and/or social impacts associated with all the stages of a product’s life cycle, which is from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, and disposal designed as cradle-to-grave (lineal economy) or cradle-to-cradle (circular economy).
The environmental life cycle assessment through energy and matter inventories used during the product lifecycle calculates emissions, discharges and waste produced and transforms the results into environmental impacts. This provides an understanding of the environmental profile of a product.
The social life cycle calculates the social impacts related to the product’s life cycle, to obtain the social profile of the product.
With the above results, and using appropriate protocols and methods, the sustainability profile of a product or service can be obtained.
What means “environmental impact” and “social impact”?
The environmental impact is the result of a variation in the environmental conditions caused by any natural or human activities.
The UE environmental footprint (EF3.0 v1.0) uses the following environmental impact categories:
• Climate change (CO2 equivalent).
• Ozone depletion.
• Ionising radiation.
• Photochemical ozone formation.
• Particulate matters.
• Human toxicity, non-cancer.
• Human toxicity, cancer.
• Acidification.
• Eutrophication freshwater.
• Eutrophication marine.
• Eutrophication terrestrial.
• Ecotoxicity freshwater.
• Land use.
• Water use.
• Resource use, fossils.
• Resource use, minerals and metals.
A social impact is a way to measure the contribution on the social and sociological aspects associated with the life cycle of a product or service for the well-being of people.
The social life cycle assessment evaluates social impact within the following categories:
• Labour rights and decent work.
• Health and safety.
• Human rights.
• Governance.
• Community infrastructure.
In this sense, regarding the measurement of social impacts on the supply chain, Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) is one To measure the environmental and social impacts of the textile industry there are several tools and methods.
The most relevant tools and methods used today to measure environmental impacts are Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and footprints. Focusing on the environmental impacts, for the European Commission (2003) the LCA methodology is the most suitable methodology to measure environmental impacts along the supply chains, from the extraction of raw materials until their final disposal. The International Standards Organization has standardized it into the standards ISO 14040 and of the most applied methods in the academic literature.
SoGReS-MF Research Group, within the frame of the SMART H2020 Project, proposes a Sustainability Assessment Framework (SAF) along the supply chain. (For more detailed information about the application of SAF and its main results, see the following Report)
European Commission (2021): Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. Textiles and clothing in the EU. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/fashion/textiles-clothing/eu_en
European Commission. 2016. “Product Environmental Footprint Pilot Guidance for the implementation of the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) during the Environmental Footprint (EF) pilot phase”. Version 5.2 – February 2016. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/pdf/Guidance_products.pdf
Muñoz-Torres, M. J., Fernandez-Izquierdo, M. A., Rivera-Lirio, J. M., Ferrero-Ferrero, I., Escrig-Olmedo, E., Gisbert-Navarro, J.V. (2017). D5.2 List of best practices and KPIs of the textile products life cycle. Public Report, SMART H2020 Project. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5bd4e507d&appId=PPGMS
UNEP-SETAC (2009). Guidelines for Social Life Cycle Assessment of Products. Available at: https://www.lifecycleinitiative.org/starting-life-cycle-thinking/life-cycle-approaches/social-lca/