Decoding Life Cycle Assessments
What are LCAs good for? What are they criticized for and why are brands using LCAs?
Welcome to The Crisps, your newsletter on anti-greenwashing and honest fashion communication. In this issue, we’re diving into Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs). That’s right, LCAs are relevant for communication teams as well. So in this issue, we’ll explain what a Life Cycle Assessment is, what it’s intention and boundaries are and why brands might be using them. (As this topic is really complex, we’re diving into the “how to communicate” part next week!)
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You read and hear it again and again: The assumption that fashion is the “second most polluting industry in the world”1 is still cited by professionals in the industry. Let’s clear the air once and for all: IT’S NOT TRUE!
But the entire industry is concerned about the environmental impact and its metrics. To set themselves apart from their competition brands take to the likes of Higg MSI, GreenStory, Ecochain, and Bcome to measure the environmental impact of their products or services. The organizations follow different approaches to assess the environmental impact but most refer to the so-called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
While LCAs can help to gain an overview of the environmental impacts of a product there are boundaries to the methodology as well. Before we get to them, let’s cover the basics.
Even though marketing and communication professionals should understand how LCAs work, this issue is also for all of the sustainability managers and fashion brands you know. So feel free to share it with them!
LCAs are a complex topic. To answer the most important questions, we’ve prepared a little FAQ. Here we go:
What is an LCA?
Good, you ask! A Life Cycle Assessment is a scientific method to measure the environmental impact of a product or process in 15 impact categories over a defined lifetime. The impact scenarios include global warming, land use, and eco-toxicity among others. There are usually two definitions of a lifetime: cradle-to-grave and cradle-to-cradle.2
In both lifetime approaches data is measured starting at the extraction or cultivation of raw material to each stage of manufacturing, transportation, and product use. But there are two different ending scenarios: With cradle-to-grave you collect data until the end-of-life where products are disposed of. With cradle-to-cradle you collect data on how to keep material and components in the economic loop – for example by recycling or repurposing.
What LCAs are not:
providing an accurate and interconnected picture of all environmental impacts of a garment
showing you solutions on what to change in order to reduce the environmental impact of your product or service → but the results from LCAs can help you decide on what measures to take3
designed to tell us which material is better → It’s only designed to tell us some aspects, but leaves out important factors such as social impacts and has to be put into context
How do LCAs work?
According to International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14044/40 standards, a complimentary LCA should be carried out in four phases:4
Why do brands use LCAs?
Brands can use LCAs to investigate the potential environmental impacts of different stages of their product and identify hotspots in a product’s life cycle. They may learn that their assumptions about which materials to use or how their product is designed were not as environmentally friendly as they expected. So brands can use the results from the LCA to adapt their business and supply chain decisions – across all departments from design to sourcing and manufacturing etc. A result could be to switch the material or source of energy, chemical input and production method.
There’s criticism around LCAs. What is it about?
Life Cycle Assessments can be a useful tool but there’s criticism about its use for the following reasons.
🔹 The way data is recorded: Textile supply chains are ultra-complex and involve multiple players that most brands can’t transparently follow back to. Therefore it’s almost impossible for them to measure data at each stage. The result: Brands usually don’t use primary data from their own supply chain but industry averages (secondary or terciary data) which leads to inaccurate results. Especially the HIGG Index carbon footprint evaluation of textile goods has been under fire and is even forbidden to use for communication in Norway. (Why? We’ll give you the story next week in our pro issue.)
🔹 Almost all LCAs are created by commercial providers and form the foundation of current sustainability indices. From the Fashion Act to the Product Environmental Footprint, there’s criticism that the current legislation will be based on the views of LCA providers and brands that fund them.
🔹 Context is missing: LCAs can give an overview of the environmental impact but the data has to be put into context and might not always be what it seems. To quote Kat Banfi: “Perhaps the most realistic way to look at these metrics is the way we look at the nutritious value of food. We are starting to understand that it is not the overall number of calories or the amount of fat that determines the impact of our favorite snack on our well-being. On paper, 50 grams of walnuts contain more calories than 50 grams of salted potato chips. It does not mean, however, that potato chips are healthier.”5 So context is king – as always.
🔹 Inaccurate green claims: LCA results are often used to compare aspects or materials that are not supposed to be compared – for example, synthetic fibers and natural fibers. (We will explain this aspect in more detail in our pro issue next week!) The result can be misleading and leading to false claims.
🔹 LCAs have limitations: Classic LCAs don’t include economic or social impacts. But luckily, hybrid methodologies for social-LCAs become more popular.
What do LCAs have to do with the EU Green Claims Directive proposal? Why can you not use LCA results to compare the environmental impact of natural and synthetic fibers? And why is the HIGG Index (which is used for LCAs by a big portion of the industry) forbidden for communication in Norway?
Dive into more details with us next week in our pro issue. Plus we’re sharing tips on how to use LCA data for your communication and what NOT to do.
All the best,
Tanita & Lavinia
Friedman, V. (2018). The biggest fake news in fashion. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/fashion/fashion-second-biggest-polluter-fake-news.html (accessed online 28.05.2023)
Moazzem, S., Daver, F., Crossin, E., & Wang, L. (2018). Assessing environmental impact of textile supply chain using life cycle assessment methodology. The journal of the Textile Institute, 109(12), 1574-1585.
Muthu, S. S. (Ed.). (2015). Handbook of life cycle assessment (LCA) of textiles and clothing. Woodhead publishing.
Bjørn, A., et al. (2018). LCA History. In: Hauschild, M., at al. (eds). Life Cycle Assessment. Springer.
Banfi, Kat (2022). Can We Trust Environmental Footprints for Fashion Products?https://ecocult.com/environmental-footprints-fashion-lca/ (accessed online 13.06.2023)