SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF COTTON APPAREL (LCSA OF COTTON T-SHIRT)

Abstract

Together with this growth of aggregate demand and supply in the market, we are increasingly depleting the natural resources, producing the harmful pollutants to air, water and land, huge tons of waste and boost the effects of global warming. With the theory of sustainable development, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) is useful tool to deliver the better understanding on the three pillar approach -people, planet and profit, along the whole supply chain of the product. The unnecessary consumption with the concept of “buy new, dispose old” is the main driving force of the fashion industry. Recently, the wide ranges of issues have been raised in several environmental and social areas throughout the supply chain within the textile and clothing industry. The scope starts from excessive water and energy use in plantation of cotton till the disposal of the final products. Cotton T-shirt has been adopted as case study for the sustainability assessment. The necessary data are collected through literature review, informal interviews and self-survey. First, the existing life cycle techniques are discussed with advantages and disadvantages in this dissertation. In addition, the discussion about new life cycle method (LCSA) is made and the application of this technique in the assessment of cotton T-shirt is studied. The energy and water inputs in the process are taken into account. From the results, we found out that the two largest contributions to sustainability impact arise from the cotton production and use phases in the lifecycle of clothing. In production phase, cotton tends to use less energy but more demanding on other resources such as water. The impact of the use phase is dominated by energy and water use due to washing and ironing. We can imply that the use phase is the highest consumer of electricity and water with highest cost utility. Moreover, the particular clothing company is trying to comply with the standard of social responsibility in terms of employing disabilities and providing sufficient wages in the distribution sector.