Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are used in durable water repellents (DWRs) on outdoor garments and manufacturers are currently phasing out hazardous PFASs. A critical question is: which alternatives should be chosen? The answer should depend on a holistic assessment, but the published inventory data and methodological guidance for assessing PFAS in products is slim and typically limited to hazard assessment. We aim to provide a holistic assessment of the potential environmental consequences of this phase out of DWRs, going beyond the more traditional hazard-focused substitution assessment to also include a broad life-cycle-based assessment of PFASs and their drop-in alternatives. In this study, potential environmental consequences of the phase out were evaluated by applying a life cycle assessment (LCA) to shell jackets with side-chain fluorinated polymer based (i.e., PFASs) or non-fluorinated alternative DWRs with the aim to support a substitution assessment. We demonstrated an innovative approach to impact assessment by inclusion of PFAS related fate and toxicity and invested effort towards contributing new primary inventory data by using a combination of industry dialogue and performance measurements from our larger project context. From a methodological point of view, this paper demonstrates the state-of-the-art in product LCA of persistent textile chemicals and identifies the current limits of this assessment approach. It also delivers new LCI data of use to other analysts. The LCA results in this paper suggest that jackets without PFASs are environmentally preferable. Potential problem shifting due to increased washing and reimpregnation of the jackets did not outweigh PFAS-related potential toxicity impacts as indicated by LCA results. Based on the results presented here, specific DWRs within the non-fluorinated DWR group could not be identified as preferable to others. This LCA does however provide a relevant starting point for more detailed studies on specific DWR systems and it supports moves to phase-out PFASs from non-essential DWR uses. © 2021 The Authors

Consumer products such as clothes and footwear sometimes contain chemical substances with properties that pose a risk to human health and the environment. These substances, restricted by law or company policy, are in focus for chemicals management processes by textile retailers. However, complex and non-transparent supply chains, and limited chemical knowledge, makes chemicals management challenging. Therefore, a function-based approach for life cycle management (LCM) of chemicals was developed, based on results of previous projects and evaluated using a two-step Delphi process. The resulting approach aims to help retailers identify and substitute hazardous substances in products, and consists of three parts: (i) a function-based chemicals management concept model for different levels of chemical information within the supply chain, (ii) tools for non-chemists which explain chemical information, and (iii) a continuous provision of knowledge to stakeholders (e.g., retailers) in a network. This approach is successfully implemented by over 100 retailers in the Nordic countries, providing the textile industry with practical and robust tools to manage and substitute hazardous chemicals in products and production processes. We conclude that the developed approach provides an explicit link, communication, and knowledge sharing between actors in the supply chain, which has proven important in chemicals LCM.

In many regions and at the planetary scale, human pressures on the environment exceed levels that natural systems can sustain. These pressures are caused by networks of human activities, which often extend across countries and continents due to global trade. This has led to an increasing requirement for methods that enable absolute environmental sustainability assessment (AESA) of anthropogenic systems and which have a basis in life cycle assessment (LCA). Such methods enable the comparison of environmental impacts of products, companies, nations, etc, with an assigned share of environmental carrying capacity for various impact categories. This study is the first systematic review of LCA-based AESA methods and their applications. After developing a framework for LCA-based AESA methods, we identified 45 relevant studies through an initial survey, database searches and citation analysis. We characterized these studies according to their intended application, impact categories, basis of carrying capacity estimates, spatial differentiation of environmental model and principles for assigning carrying capacity. We then characterized all method applications and synthesized their results. Based on this assessment, we present recommendations to practitioners on the selection and use of existing LCA-based AESA methods, as well as ways to perform assessments and communicate results to decision-makers. Furthermore, we identify future research priorities intended to extend coverage of all components of the proposed method framework, improve modeling and increase the applicability of methods. © 2020 The Author(s). 

Purpose: Toxicity impacts of chemicals have only been covered to a minor extent in LCA studies of textile products. The two main reasons for this exclusion are (1) the lack of life cycle inventory (LCI) data on use and emissions of textile-related chemicals, and (2) the lack of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) data for calculating impacts based on the LCI data. This paper addresses the first of these two. Methods: In order to facilitate the LCI analysis for LCA practitioners, an inventory framework was developed. The framework builds on a nomenclature for textile-related chemicals which was used to build up a generic chemical product inventory for use in LCA of textiles. In the chemical product inventory, each chemical product and its content was modelled to fit the subsequent LCIA step. This means that the content and subsequent emission data are time-integrated, including both original content and, when relevant, transformation products as well as impurities. Another key feature of the framework is the modelling of modularised process performance in terms of emissions to air and water. Results and discussion: The inventory framework follows the traditional structure of LCI databases to allow for use together with existing LCI and LCIA data. It contains LCI data sets for common textile processes (unit processes), including use and emissions of textile-related chemicals. The data sets can be used for screening LCA studies and/or, due to their modular structure, also modified. Modified data sets can be modelled from recipes of input chemicals, where the chemical product inventory provides LCA-compatible content and emission data. The data sets and the chemical product inventory can also be used as data collection templates in more detailed LCA studies. Conclusions: A parallel development of a nomenclature for and acquisition of LCI data resulted in the creation of a modularised inventory framework. The framework advances the LCA method to provide results that can guide towards reduced environmental impact from textile production, including also the toxicity impacts from textile chemicals. Recommendations: The framework can be used for guiding stakeholders of the textile sector in macro-level decisions regarding the effectiveness of different impact reduction interventions, as well as for guiding on-site decisions in textile manufacturing.

Production of cotton and synthetic fibres are known to cause negative environmental effects. For cotton, pesticide use and irrigation during cultivation contributes to emissions of toxic substances that cause damage to both human health and the ecosystem. Irrigation of cotton fields cause water stress due to large water needs. Synthetic fibres are questionable due to their (mostly) fossil resource origin and the release of microplastics. To mitigate the environmental effects of fibre production, there is an urgent need to improve the production of many of the established fibres and to find new, better fibre alternatives.

For the first time ever, this reports compiles all currently publicly available data on the environmental impact of fibre production. By doing this, the report illuminates two things:

• There is a glaring lack of data on the environmental impact of fibres – for several fibres just a few studies were found, and often only one or a few environmental impacts are covered. For new fibres associated with sustainability claims there is often no data available to support such claims.
• There are no ”sustainable” or ”unsustainable” fibre types, it is the suppliers that differ. The span within each fibre type (different suppliers) is often too large, in relation to differences between fibre types, to draw strong conclusions about differences between fibre types.

Further, it is essential to use the life cycle perspective when comparing, promoting or selecting (e.g. by designers or buyers) fibres. To achieve best environmental practice, apart from considering the impact of fibre production, one must consider the functional properties of a fibre and how it fits into an environmentally appropriate product life cycle, including the entire production chain, the use phase and the end-of-life management. Selecting the right fibre for the right application is key for optimising the environmental performance of the product life cycle.

The report is intended to be useful for several purposes:

• as input to broader studies including later life cycle stages of textile products,
• as a map over data gaps in relation to supporting claims on the environmental preferability of certain fibres over others, and
• as a basis for screening fibre alternatives, for example by designers and buyers (e.g. in public procurement).

For the third use it is important to acknowledge that for a full understanding of the environmental consequences of the choice of fibre, a full cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment (LCA) is recommended.

Investigations of metal ecotoxicity in life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) are becoming important tools for evaluating the environmental impact of a product or process. There is, however, improvement needed for LCIA of metal ecotoxicity in order to make this assessment more relevant and robust. In this work, three issues within the LCIA of metal ecotoxicity are investigated, mainly focusing on topics related to stainless steel manufacturing. The first issue is the importance of considering regional water chemistry when constructing the characterization factor (CF). A model freshwater of relevance for stainless steel manufacturing in a region of Sweden was created with chemistry different from available options. The second issue is related to the lack of consideration on changes in speciation of Cr(VI) in freshwater for a given emission, as Cr(VI) to some extent will be reduced to Cr(III). Two new options are suggested based on relationships between the Cr(VI)-total Cr ratio as a way to improve the relevancy of LCIA for Cr(VI) in freshwater. The last issue is how to treat metal release from slags in LCIA. Metal release from slags was shown to vary significantly between different ways of modelling slag emissions (differences in total metal content, slag leaching tests, estimated emissions to groundwater). © 2019 by the authors.

This report presents a study of the technical performance of new sustainable textile_bers. The sister report scrutinizes the de_nition of “new sustainable textile _bers” andquanti_es the environmental potential of _bers. Together they aim to identify the _berswith the greatest potential to mitigate the environmental impact of _bers currentlydominating the fashion industry.We wanted to quantify the environmental potential of _bers and compare them on a fairand level playing _eld, with the aim to guide policy makers, industry and end customers inselecting “winners” and “losers”. A multitude of other reports and tools with similar aimsexist, though this report includes more types of textile _bers provides more quantitativedata on their performance, and to a greater extent discuss the data found, as well as thedata not found.The work with _nding sustainable _ber alternatives, but also sustainable yarns andfabrics will be on-going in the Mistra Future Fashion programme until the summer of 2019.If you, as a reader, know about sustainable _bers which are missing in the present report,please let us know by e-mail: sandra.roos@ri.se.

This guideline aims to inspire fashion companies that wants to transform their supplychain to become sustainable. It intends to inform about the current available knowledgethat research can offer and hopefully provide some answers to the issues that refraincompanies from starting the transition.

The first chapter gives an overview of environmental impacts associated with textileproduction in relation to the carrying capacity of the earth. The recommendations for thetextile industry to keep within the planetary boundaries are:

• by 2030 reduce emissions of greenhouse gases from textile use by 50%, and by 2050be carbon-neutral;

• by 2030 textile companies have knowledge of main suppliers’ water sources andrecipients, and the mean monthly river flows. By 2050, the control variable is suggestedto blue water withdrawal as % of mean monthly river flow and cooperation with otherlocal users.

• by 2030 phase out all persistent organic pollutants (POP) from textile production andminimize use of chemicals as well as responsible handling of chemicals.

The second chapter discuss the methodology used for developing the guidelines. Thetechnique of back casting was used to create a vision for how a sustainable supply chainliving up to the recommendations above could look like. The next step was to collect aseries of technical solutions that can reduce the environmental impacts, both via industrydialogue and literature sources.

Finally, the Results chapter presents the actions that have been identified as feasible withtoday’s available technology and with high efficiency in reducing environmental impact.The results chapter also quantifies the effects that the proposed actions would have. Allproposed actions are linked to technologies which are available in bulk scale today.The guidance document ends with the Ecodesign Action List where the intent is for acompany to in a systematic way see what actions are possible, starting with the actionsof highest impact reduction potential first and saving the less efficient (but still efficient)actions for last.

Fluorinated durable water repellent (DWR) agents are used to obtain water and stain repellent textiles. Due to the on-going phase-out of DWRs based on side-chain fluorinated polymers (SFP) with “long” perfluoroalkyl chains, the textile industry lacks suitable alternatives with comparable material characteristics. The constant development and optimization of SFPs for textile applications initiated more than half a century ago has resulted in a robust and very efficient DWR-technology and textiles with exceptional hydro- and oleo-phobic properties. The industry is now in the predicament that the long-chain SFPs with the best technical performance have undesirable toxicological and environmental behaviour. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the technical performance of presently available fluorinated and non-fluorinated DWRs as part of a chemical alternatives assessment (CAA). The results are based on a study with synthetic outdoor fabrics treated with alternative DWRs and tested for repellency using industrial standard and complementary methods. Using this approach, the complex structure-property relationships of DWR-polymers could be explained on a molecular level. Both short-chain SFPs and non-fluorinated DWRs showed excellent water repellency and durability in some cases while short-chain SFPs were the more robust of the alternatives to long-chain SFPs. A strong decline in oil repellency and durability with perfluoroalkyl chain length was shown for SFP DWRs. Non-fluorinated alternatives were unable to repel oil, which might limit their potential for substitution in textile application that require repellency towards non-polar liquids.

The topic of shedding of micro-sized polymeric particles, so called microplastics, from textiles has been covered by an increasing number of studies over the past years. However, the methods with which the shedding of microplastics from textiles has been measured so far has shown a large variation. Consequently, the results regarding the amount of shed particles also vary, from 120 to 728,289 particles from similar garments in recent studies. This article presents research enabling for identification of whether the shedding of microplastics from different types of fabric was dependent on construction parameters. As none of the methods in the existing literature could be used for evaluating shedding of microplastics from textiles, a method was developed for this purpose. The resulting final method is described in this paper as well as the work with minimizing the error sources and consequently the standard deviation of the results through selection of material samples, equipment and procedure for sample preparation, washing, filtering the washing water and analyzing the shed microplastics. Comparing the environmental load of different garments, or identifying improvement possibilities in garment construction are two examples of how the method can be utilized.