4. Measuring environmental impact: benchmark and tools for the fashion industry

For companies in the fashion industry to become more cognizant and proactive about minimizing the environmental impact of their product life cycles, they would need to rely on a definitive benchmarks and tools to gauge the environmental impact of their decisions regarding product or processes. However, measuring environmental impact of such decisions can be very convoluted, as results tend to be conflicting depending on which angle it is viewed from. Here are some examples of the conflicting nature of environmental impact measures:

On the one hand, for example:

• A polyester shirt has more than double the carbon footprint of a cotton shirt (5.5 kg CO2 emissions vs. 2.1 kg CO2 emissions) [11].

But on the other hand:


The following is an outline of three established benchmarks and tools, designed to enable the fashion industry (and other industries), to measure the environmental impact of certain decisions regarding their material use or processes employed:
