Evaluating Use & End Of Life Impacts:
Based on Survey Data in UK
About Green Story
Green Story is a Product Environmental Footprint intelligence platform dedicated to helping companies measure, communicate, and improve their environmental impact through data-driven insights and transparency. With a focus on lifecycle assessments, carbon footprinting, and digital sustainability tools, Green Story empowers brands to achieve their net-zero ambitions through science-backed solutions. As an official verifier for the Higg FEM, Green Story ensures the highest standards of environmental assessment and verification. Learn more at www.greenstory.io
The Problem
Understanding the environmental impact caused by consumer use and end-of-life behaviours
Lifecycle assessment (LCA) is key a method used across the Fashion and Textiles industry, to quantify environmental impact.
The methodology is designed to calculate a range of impact categories across the entire lifecycle of a product.
LCA studies focus on the pre-consumer stages of the lifecycle with system boundaries defined as cradle to gate or gate to gate.
Critical gaps in understanding how consumers acquire, care for and dispose of garments during the use phase is limiting this methodology.
Environmental LCAs often focus on materials and manufacturing. That means they overlook two critical stages:
How consumers actually use clothes
How garments are disposed of
Without this, brands can’t see the real-world footprint of a product or how much impact could be avoided through better design, communication, and behaviour change.
“This limited scope excludes critical life cycle phases such as use and end-of-life”
The Project
We are collaborating with Green story to explore the usage and end-of-life phase of clothing in the UK.
The project aims to collect crucial data on usage and end-of-life scenarios for ten key product categories, aligned with Product Category Rules (PCRs) for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Product Environmental Footprints (PEFs).
The goal is to provide brands and policymakers with actionable insights into the lifecycle of clothing, supporting the development of better systems and more sustainable products.
Our Approach
Comparing consumer usage across different scenarios and quantifying impact across categories
1.Primary Consumer Data
A UK-wide survey captured how people wash, wear, and dispose of 10 everyday clothing categories.
Product Categories:
Underwear
Dresses
Pants
Jackets
T-shirt
Swimwear
Shirt
Jumpsuits
Leggings
Swimwear
2.Lifecycle Modelling
Using ISO 14040/44 LCA methodology, we calculated impacts across:
Climate Change
Water Use
Resource Use
3.Usage Scenario Comparison
Each garment was tested under three scenarios:
Baseline
Business as usual (BAU) with reuse of garments at end of its desirable life.
Ideal
Garments are used until in quality deteriorates and then sent to reuse at the end of its usable life.
Fast Fashion
Garments are used until in quality deteriorates and then sent to reuse at the end of its usable life.
Further Collaboration:
Sustainability Communication Course
Green Story and IMPACT+ introduce a groundbreaking hybrid course on sustainability communication in India.
Led by sustainability and communication experts, Dr Alana James and Professor Anne Peirson-Smith, this initiative marks a pivotal moment for marketing and ESG leaders in the fashion and textiles industry.
This program combines in-person workshops in India with dynamic virtual sessions, equipping participants with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate the evolving sustainability landscape.
Webinars:
Delivered by IMPACT+ (Dr Alana James, Professor Anne Peirson-Smith) Green Story (Akhil Sivanandan).
Communicating Sustainability:
Crafting Transparent, Compliant Messaging for a Competitive Edge
The webinar discussed:
- Best practices to transform your communication strategy
- Understanding sustainability in the context of the multi-stakeholder fashion ecosystem
- Mastering the principles of transparent compliant messaging
- How to engage in shaping you future practices
Communicating Responsibly:
Crafting Clear and Compelling Narratives for Effective Corporate Climate Messaging
The webinar discussed:
- Identifying and engaging target audiences
- Crafting responsible communication narratives
- Avoiding greenwashing and greenhushing
- Adopting a lifecycle perspective
- Implementing best practices in sustainable fashion communication
- Conducting needs analysis for stakeholder involvement
- Questions & interactive discussion
Communicating Transparency:
Crafting effective sustainability messaging for enhanced stakeholder trust and brand reputation
The webinar discussed how to:
- Identify and evaluate sustainable communication objectives
- Locate and access the key audience to ensure messaging is efficient.
- Navigate the fluid legislative landscape towards compliance and avoidance of greenwashing.
- Devise the core story being communicated to increase trust.
- Highlight effective communication channels appropriate for the audience.
- Questions and Discussion