The Environmental Impact of Textiles and Clothing: A Regional and a Country Approach

Crestani, Marco; Talens Peiró, Laura; Toboso-Chavero, Susana

ACCESS at Progress on Life Cycle Assessment in Textiles and Clothing (2023) pp 199–230. This chapter is part of  the Textile Science and Clothing Technology book series.

In the context of circularity, the European Commission has confirmed its intention to make sustainable textile products the norm in Europe as stated by the new EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. New Eco-design for sustainable products regulations will also be defined and become mandatory, including requirements for increased durability, reparability, recyclability, and recycled content. As part of the strategy, more support for research, innovation, and investments are denoted. However, understanding and advancing innovations for circularity in textiles rigorous data are needed to help account more accurately for the flows and stocks. Such accounting is key to support a more sustainable textile value chain and to define just textile waste reduction targets. This chapter proposes the Material Flow Analysis methodology as a powerful tool to shed light on the metabolism of textiles and clothing. It has also been proved useful to consider their related environmental impacts. To illustrate the use of the material flow analysis for the analysis of textiles, national scale (Spain), and regional scale (Catalonia) analyses are performed. The input data include yarn, fibres, and finished products. Current available statistical data on imports and exports confirm a notable growth in the flows of cotton, synthetic fibres, and both knitted and woven products. As a result, the textile waste generated by the high volume of consumption, along with the still low percentage of recycling and reusing approach, calls for further measures to minimise textile and clothing environmental impacts. Precise estimates of the flows of textile inputs and outputs in a geographical area along with their respective carbon footprint provide consistent results of their current environmental impact, key to better defining waste textiles prevention targets crucial to improve their sustainability.