Textile LCA: fibre choice, wet processing and the Digital Product Passport

Textiles are among Turkey's largest export lines to the EU, and the sector where demand for environmental data will rise fastest. The reason is that the Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and the Digital Product Passport regulation single textiles out as one of the first application areas.

Where the impact concentrates

Impact in a textile product's life cycle concentrates in three places: fibre production, wet processing (dyeing and finishing) and laundering during use. Garment assembly, contrary to common assumption, is a small share of the total.

Fibre choice is decisive but there is no simple hierarchy. Cotton is renewable yet carries irrigation and fertiliser burden; cotton grown in water-scarce regions has a very high water footprint. Polyester is fossil-based but low in water use, and recycled polyester offers a clear advantage. Regenerated cellulosics such as viscose vary across a very wide range depending on forest sourcing and solvent recovery efficiency.

Wet processing: the most intense and least measured link

Wet processing carries the highest energy and water consumption per unit mass in the textile chain. Steam raising, drying and water treatment account for most of the energy. It is also the most fragmented link, and the hardest to get data from; brands often do not know the dyehouse directly.

• Boiler fuel — moving from coal to natural gas is a large abatement line on its own
• Liquor ratio — low-ratio machines cut water and energy together
• Heat recovery — wastewater heat exchange typically pays back quickly
• Drying efficiency — mechanical dewatering is an order of magnitude cheaper than thermal drying
• Recipe accuracy — right-first-time colour eliminates reprocessing

The use stage and the functional unit

How many times a t-shirt is washed over its life creates a burden comparable to its production. So in textiles the functional unit should be 'a defined number of wears' rather than 'one garment'. Durability becomes a direct environmental performance parameter: a product lasting twice as long has half the impact per wear.

PEF and the Digital Product Passport

The Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method defines a detailed category rule set for textiles and imposes a structure that forces comparability. The Digital Product Passport turns that data into a machine-readable record attached to the product: material composition, recycled content, repair information and environmental indicators.

For a producer that means product-level data becomes mandatory. Annual corporate averages will not do; each SKU will need a traceable data record. At that scale, managing the data in spreadsheets is not feasible.