Around 90% of accelerated GHG abatement can be delivered below a cost of US$60/ton of GHG emissions and 55% of actions could lead to cost savings, says a McKinsey report.

This is extremely encouraging. If indeed a large number o...

For the textile industry, implementation of energy efficiency and sustainable energy could deliver upto 1 billion tons of GHG emissions savings by 2030, across the entire textile value chain, according to a McKinsey report.

Thes...

IFC’s PaCT - Partnership for Cleaner Textiles - will provide access to easy and low cost loans for textile industry stakeholders investing in clean energy projects.

Just what the doctor ordered, we feel. If a transition to...

Women represent the vast majority of textile and apparel industry workforce - up to about 80% in some manufacturing countries (Source: BCG/GFA)

This is a powerful stat indeed - 80% of workforce being women.

In parallel...

For Vietnam and Bangladesh, their textile exports are about 10% of their total GDP (2017)

Both these countries export textiles in the $25-30 billion/year range. That’s an awful lot, given that their national GDPs are in th...

The EU imports almost 40% of all global textile and apparel imports (by value, 2017)

That’s massive. This region can pretty much make or break a country’s or region’s textile sector, and thus hold significant l...

Nike uses about 16,000 distinct materials across all its products (2019, WRI report)

While one would have indeed assumed that a large global leader such as Nike would be using a plethora of materials, 16,000 is still far beyond ...

Textile and apparel producers have strong contractual and business relationships, as well as access to data, with suppliers one tier away; such influence and data access beyond this tier might be little or none.

This could be a ...

Use phase could contribute to up to 35% of a jeans’ value chain GHG footprint (based on a report from Levi Strauss, 2018)

While the immediate solution to reduce this footprint appears to be customer education, we feel it i...

Some studies of using cogeneration (CHP) boilers on textile factories are reporting up to 40% carbon emission reduction compared to separate heat and power systems (based on 2018 and 2019 data points)

A 40% reduction of CO2 emis...

Cotton production accounts for 16% of world’s pesticide use

As organic cotton contributes only about 1% of the total cotton production worldwide - a number unlikely to zoom much higher in the next few years - one wond...

The impacts on biodiversity per ton of cotton production in countries such as India are almost five times as high as the global average (CISL, Cambridge, 2020)

It is not clear what are the real reasons behind such a disparity, a...

Twice as many uses per garment life cycle eliminated almost 50% of impact, regardless of impact category (RISE, Chalmers Univ of Tech)

This may not be surprising - twice the extent of use of the same garment should logically mea...

Supima cotton, a long staple cotton reportedly lasts much longer than short staple cotton, could be twice as long.

Special attention is given to many aspects of Supima cotton production. The Supima cotton web site says "Fro...

52% of T-shirt’s CO2 emissions occur during use - (BCG & Carbon Trust)

This is a stat that should worry apparel and fashion manufacturers. If a large part of an apparel’s carbon footprint happens during the use p...

Mentions of sustainability in social media grew a third faster than overall social media growth between 2015 and 2018 (GCA/BCG/SAC 2019)

So here's another estimate that only strengthens the hypothesis that there’s a re...

In China’s Xintang province, a hub for denim, 300 million pairs are made annually (Fashion Revolution, 2019).

This region is called the denim capital of the world, and why not! 15% of the 2 billion pairs of jeans produced ...

In 2018, 95% of cotton sourced by H&M was sustainable - organic, recycled or cotton sourced through Better Cotton Initiative (Source: H&M).

This is certainly impressive. If a large firm is able to get close to 100% of it...

Cottonized hemp - Hemp has a much lower environmental impact during cultivation but the quality and characteristics of hemp fiber do not match those of cotton. As a result, there are efforts to cottonize hemp

Hemp, by all accoun...

Real denim lovers wash their jeans a lot less than mere mortals!

Raw denim aficionados don’t wash their jeans for about 6 months after purchase in order to allow the jeans to develop a natural fade. Raw denim jeans also ne...

The real price of clothing for Europeans fell by 36% between 1996 and 2012.

According to an EEA (European Environmental Agency) estimate, between 1996 and 2012, the price of clothing increased by 3% but consumer prices in genera...

Polyester has some useful properties that lends itself to sustainability.

Polyester, though synthetic and non-biodegradable, has a lower water footprint, can be washed at lower temperatures, dries quickly, needs much less ironin...

More than 1900 chemicals are used in apparel production, of which over 165 are classified by EU as hazardous to health or environment (EU Parliamentary Research Service, 2019).

While one would like to use very few chemicals in a...

Mechanical recycling of textiles, the dominant form as of 2020, involves cutting and shredding, which means that the fibers are shorter, are of lower quality and hence lose 75% of their value.

As a result, these recycled fibers ...

In the EU, on average, about 15-20% of disposed textiles are collected for reuse or recycling (rest or landfilled or incinerated). But there are significant variations in this - in Germany, 70% of disposed textiles are collected for reuse or r...