CARBON FOOTPRINT OF SON OF A TAILOR COMPARED TO THE FASHION INDUSTRY · 2019-10-08 · fashion retail and general fashion E-commerce benchmarking these to the emission from a Son

CARBON FOOTPRINT OF

SON OF A TAILOR COMPARED TO THE FASHION INDUSTRY

AUTUMN 2019

2 WASTE IN FASHION AUTUMN 2019

INTRODUCTIONThe fashion industry is known for its high return

rates, huge waste and overproduction, all leading

to an enormous carbon footprint. In our first white

paper, “Waste in Fashion”, we documented the very

high waste rates. In this document we want to put

focus on the high carbon emission related to the

wasteful processes in fashion.

In this study we document:

1. Emission of each step in the fashion value chain

by looking at kgCO2 emitted for a single T-shirt.

2. Emission per T-shirt sold from classic (offline)

fashion retail and general fashion E-commerce

benchmarking these to the emission from a Son

of a Tailor (SOAT) T-shirt. SOAT strives to do

things differently by avoiding wasteful processes

and by producing made-to-order instead of

ready-to-wear.

3. Emission over the lifetime of a T-shirt in Classic

Fashion Retail, vs. Fashion E-commerce, vs. Son

of a Tailor.

CONCLUSION:

This analysis shows that the embodied (i.e. full supply chain) CO2 emissions for a SOAT T-shirt is 32% lower than a T-shirt from traditional fashion e-commerce and 45% lower than a T-shirt from offline fashion retail.

When looking at the CO2 emission per use, the

SOAT T-shirt has a 57% lower emission than a T-shirt from general fashion e-commerce. This

is primarily due to the lower embodied emission

from the production steps and the longevity of a

SOAT Supima cotton T-shirt compared to a standard

cotton T-shirt.


METHODOLOGY:

The Carbon footprint of a company or a product can

be estimated using various lenses. This analysis

focuses on the CO2 footprint of a cotton T-shirt -

looking at the emissions during its lifetime. These

emissions are compared to a typical T-shirt produced

in the general fashion retail and the general fashion

e-commerce.

Firstly, the CO2 emissions per each sold T-shirt

is estimated in eight steps; manufacturing raw

material, production of fabric, production of T-shirt,

warehousing, packaging, distribution (either to a

retail store or the customer’s home), retail store

emission, transport home by the customer (if

purchased at a retail store). The CO2 emissions are

estimated for each of the eight steps. This analysis

looks at kgCO2 emissions per step in the value

chain for one T-shirt, based on selected research

materialA,B. For some steps, the CO2 emissions are

estimated based on known differences between the

retail industry, e-commerce in general and SOAT e.g.

differences in production processes, inventory and

distribution channels.

Secondly, the CO2 emissions during the use and the

recycling of a T-shirt are included in the estimate.

Both the embodied emissions and the recycle

emission are divided by the number of wears per

T-shirt over its lifetime to get the emission per wear.

The emissions during use, such as washing, drying

and dying are based on the estimated value in UK’s

Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysis A .


ASSUMPTIONS:

UK’s Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysisA is used as a

base source providing the kgCO2 emissions for

one T-shirt throughout its lifetime. This kgCO2

emission value is divided into 7 steps but this

source is not looking at warehousing, packaging

and customer transport. Additionally, this source is

only estimating the CO2 emission for Fashion Retail

and not Fashion E-commerce. Argyridou’s study

in Stanford MagazineB provides the relationship

between emissions from General Retail and

emissions from General E-commerce. Assuming

that the relation between retail and e-commerce,

in general, is comparable to the relation between

fashion retail and fashion e-commerce, it is possible

to estimate the kgCO2 emission for a T-shirt in

Fashion E-commerce. In addition, the following has

been assumed:

1. Raw Material: Identical in Fashion Retail and

Fashion E-commerce. The difference between

both Fashion Retail and Fashion E-commerce

to Son of a Tailor is overproduction. As SOAT

produces made-to-order, the emission is

lower for this step compared to both Fashion

Retail and Fashion E-commerce. Only limited

data on overproduction exists and the term

overproduction is also difficult to define. One

could argue that garments sold at a discount

are a sign of overproduction but this analysis

chose to exclude that in the estimates of waste

from overproduction. Several sources refer

to Matevosyan14 who claims that up to 30%

of produced garments are never being sold.

However, this analysis is based on lower numbers

for a more conservative estimate. Runner et al.13

refers to Nike’s estimate of waste in movement of

goods from production to retailers and waste at

retailers. They estimate 15% waste for both steps

combined. Aftab et al.15 refers to Zara holding

only 10% of unsold inventory. Finally, Havard

Business review16 estimates that the industry

average of unsold inventory is 17-20%. Zara and

Nike must be frontrunners when it comes to

optimizing supply & demand management as

they own the entire value chain. Therefore, this

analysis uses 18.5% (middle of the interval 17-

20), hence 18.5% of the finished garments would

never be sold corresponding to 14.5% of the

fabric input.

2. Fibre/Textile Production: Same as 1.

3. Clothing Production: Same as 1.

4. Warehousing: • Fashion Retail: The relative size between CO2

emissions of the warehousing and the retail

stepB is used to estimate warehousing kgCO2

emissions. • Fashion E-commerce: Based on relative

size between General Retail and General

E-commerceB

• SOAT: The average merchandise turnover

for clothing stores is 3.91 over a 12-month

period corresponding to inventory of 3.07

months or 93.37 days8. SOAT has an average

delivery time of 9.48 days of which 2.36 days

is the average waiting time for a T-shirt from

when it arrives at the logistic warehouse to

when it has been shipped to the customer.

This means that SOAT only has 2.5% of the

warehousing inventory that a standard retail

store has (both warehousing and retail storage

included).

5. Packaging: • Fashion Retail: The relative size between CO2

emissions of the packaging and the retail

stepB is used to estimate packaging kgCO2

emissions. • Fashion E-commerce: Based on the relative

size between General Retail and General

E-commerce presented in Argyridou’s study in

Stanford MagazineB


• SOAT: Packaging costs per T-shirt are

comparable to Fashion E-commerce but

E-commerce has a standard of 20% return

rates1,2 compared to SOAT’s 4.16%. Therefore,

SOAT has less repacking.

6. Distribution:• Fashion Retail: As provided in source: UK’s

Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysisA

• Fashion E-commerce: Relative contribution

compared to warehousingB and hereafter,

adding the transport to logistic hub similar to

distribution in retail (conservative).• SOAT: Last Mile delivery cost per T-shirt

is comparable to Fashion E-commerce but

E-commerce has a standard of 20% return

rate1,2 compared to SOAT’s 4.16%. Therefore,

SOAT has less return transport.

7. Retail:• Fashion Retail: As provided in source: UK’s

Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysisA

• Fashion E-commerce: Not relevant• SOAT: Not relevant

8. Customer Transport: • Fashion Retail: The CO2 emission from

Customer Transport it not provided in source:

UK’s Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysisA but

provided in Argyridou’s study in Stanford

MagazineB. The Relative contribution of

Customer Transport measured in MJ compared

to RetailB is then used in order to get the CO2

emission in for Customer Transport.• Fashion E-commerce: Not relevant• SOAT: Not relevant

9. Use: SOAT uses Supima Cotton which has staples

of 3.8cm compared to 2.5cm from standard

cotton, making it twice as strong as regular

cotton, hence making the product last longer.

An average garment is used 7 times12 before

throwing out which means that a SOAT T-shirts

is predicted to last for 14 wears. When estimating

the CO2 emission per wear the emissions

associated with producing and recycling a T-shirt

is then half the size for a SOAT T-shirt than for a

standard T-shirt. The emission associated with

wearing the T-shirt such as washing, drying etc.

is assumed equal for both the SOAT T-shirt and a

standard T-shirt. • Fashion Retail: UK’s Carbon Trust & BCG’s

analysis A estimates that 52% of the T-shirt’s

CO2 emission occur during use. In their paper

it corresponds to 7.6 kgCO2. In this estimate

they assume wearing a T-shirt 50 times during

the year, hence the emission is divided per

wear ending at 0.15 kgCO2. • Fashion E-commerce: As in the above estimate

for Fashion Retail• SOAT: As in the above estimate for Fashion

Retail


SOURCESThe two main data sources for this analysis:A. “Mapping of evidence on sustainable development impacts that occur in life cycles of clothing” a study conducted by the UK’s

Carbon Trust & BCG.B. “The Environmental Impact of Online Shopping: Nitty-gritty” posted in the Stanford Magazine in 2008 ny Anna Argyridou.

This analysis uses the 7 steps in the UK’s Carbon Trust & BCG’s analysis but add warehousing, packaging and customer transporta-tion based on the findings presented in Argyridou’s study in Stanford MagazineB.Several other data sources have been used for estimating CO2 emission:1. The Plague of Ecommerce Return Rates and How to Maintain Profitability2. https://www.invespcro.com/blog/ecommerce-product-return-rate-statistics/3. https://supima.com/the-cotton4. https://sharecloth.com/blog/reports/apparel-overproduction5. https://www.fastcompany.com/90300313/this-clothing-factory-cuts-waste-by-machine-knitting-sweaters-on-demand6. https://about.hm.com/content/dam/hmgroup/groupsite/documents/en/cision/2018/03/2145888_en.pdf7. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/business/hm-clothes-stock-sales.html8. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/average-merchandise-turnover-clothing-stores-18292.html9. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/t-shirt-environment_b_1643892?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2x-

lLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEjppf2YwTyVknjVcGvFy0BEZmncmMKTUGqa4zOiVQvwhcO5fVFW8MAvV2eP_a5OW-MiYdlXg7Q7Gf9u-FcM2kFyJhiIeaJ8fMMI7WSlvBHOFgGobcQWpsU0rR8ol4XhpK4_oKHG0756KHKwZcYGcFztOAbXJjKUzFrOK-V0wMycdl

10. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/whats-environmental-footprint-t-shirt-180962885/11. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/cotton-reduce-environmental-impact-consumer-behaviour12. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-new-fast-fashion-formula13. Runnel et al., 2017: “The Undiscovered Business Potential of Production Leftovers within Global Fashion Supply Chains: Crea-

ting a Digitally Enhanced Circular Economy”14. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/overproduction-taboo-fashion-hasmik-matevosyan/15. Aftab et al, 2017: “Super Responsive Supply Chain: The Case of Spanish Fast Fashion Retailer Inditex-Zara”16. Harvard Business Review on Managing Supply Chains, 2011

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CARBON FOOTPRINT OF SON OF A TAILOR COMPARED TO THE FASHION INDUSTRY · 2019-10-08 · fashion retail and general fashion E-commerce benchmarking these to the emission from a Son