Fibre Production
What you need to know
Environmental impact
The environmental footprint of most virgin fibers is calculated using data from the Ecoinvent 3.9.1 database. For fibers not included in Ecoinvent, TCC developers have used information from literature sources.
The impact of recycled fibers is determined by the Circular Footprint Formula (CFF), which allocates the environmental burden and benefits of recycling between the previous lifecycle (from which the fibers were sourced) and the current lifecycle of the garment where the recycled fibers are used.
Social impact
The social external cost is based on the country of fiber production and the provided fiber cost. This is converted into a per-garment fiber cost, accounting for process losses. For natural fibers, the assigned sector is ‘agriculture,’ while synthetic fibers (including recycled) fall under ‘chemicals and man-made fibers,’ and recycled natural fibers under ‘manufacture of textiles.’
If the specific country isn’t available in our database, we apply a global average that considers the top fiber-producing nations. If a detailed cost breakdown at the fiber level is not available, we apply a standard cost distribution, based on literature, derived from the total manufacturing cost.
Exclusions
Transport is not yet included in the social impact calculation.