At the carbon summit, China (statista, 2022), whose carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels account for 30% of the world's total in 2020, promised to reach the carbon peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 (Zhou, 2021). The impact of this ambitious goal has permeated all aspects of society, such as politics, national security, economy, society, environment, life style, humanities and arts, and has involved both material and non-material aspects of life.
According to the estimates of apparel impact Institute and World Resources Institute, the carbon footprint of fashion and textile industry will increase by more than 50% by 2030, and its excessive impact on the environment needs to be controlled. As the world's largest textile manufacturer, China's textile industry needs to take a large part of the responsibility for the increasing carbon emissions (Lin & moubarak, 2013). Considering the urgency of the current situation, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (cop26) in 2021, the climate action Charter of the fashion industry called on its 130 signatories to renew their commitment to halve their emissions by 2030, rather than just reduce them by 30% (Kent, 2021).
In solving the carbon emission problem of fashion textile industry, various stakeholders in the industrial chain have implemented numerous strategies. However, the existing research focuses more on the strategies related to the upstream activities of the industry (such as raw materials, design and development, production and manufacturing, supply chain, etc.), and pays less attention to the downstream activities (such as sales, marketing, use and disposal) (Lenzen & Murray, 2010).
One of the reasons why the existing research focuses on upstream activities is that they have a more direct and sensible relationship with carbon emissions. For example, it is generally believed that global warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is a major factor leading to the rise of raw material prices, because climate change has a strong destructive effect on agriculture and animal husbandry, the source industries of natural fiber and animal fiber (Harle et al., 2007; Friedman, 2021). Therefore, the raw materials in the upstream process have received great attention in the carbon reduction strategy. Production and manufacturing is another link in the upstream that is widely concerned. It is directly related to energy consumption, and a large part of it comes from coal and other fossil fuels with high carbon emissions. In addition, improving the transparency of procurement and supply chain is also a commonly used and widely praised carbon emission reduction strategy (Parker, 2022). Its established measurement tools, such as higg index (formulated by the sustainable clothing alliance in 2011), show customers the quantified impact of each link of the brand value chain on the environment and society in a standardized way, and increase the visibility of enterprises (gon ç Alves & Silva, 2021).
Another possible reason for focusing on the upstream strategy is that the carbon emissions of upstream activities are more concentrated on the macro scale, which makes it easier to track and quantify, for example, by recording the energy consumption of a plant in the production process or fiber harvesting process (Lenzen & Murray, 2010). However, although the carbon emissions from downstream activities are also quite large, they are often dispersed in micro sources that are difficult to accurately quantify. For example, in view of various variables in the laundry process, it is difficult to measure, track or integrate the energy consumption required for clothing cleaning during wearing. There is an urgent need for a standardized measurement tool to accurately and effectively quantify the carbon emissions from decentralized micro sources of downstream activities. Therefore, the current decarbonization strategy is largely reflected in upstream activities, including promoting transparency in the procurement and supply chain, reducing its impact, and restricting production capacity and pricing power. However, if governments and organizations of all countries want to fulfill their bold carbon emission reduction commitments, they must formulate strategies for the fashion and textile industry as a whole, so as to pay equal attention to the strategies to solve the carbon emissions of downstream activities. Rotimi, topple, and Hopkins (2021)
Figure 1: the life cycle of textile fashion products and the impact of each stage on the environment (input and output
It is also noted that most literatures agree that the carbon reduction strategy should be extended to the downstream "post consumption period", especially considering that consumer behavior plays a crucial role in the carbon footprint generated by the use of textile fashion products and the end of the whole life cycle (Rotimi, topple & Hopkins, 2021). Figure 1 shows the potential impact of input and output of textile fashion products on the environment at various stages. It shows how each stage of the life cycle of fashion products affects the environment, including the consumption of environmental inputs (such as water used to harvest raw materials, fossil fuels used to power production equipment, etc.) and the output released to the environment (such as carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, waste landfill after products are processed, etc.).
source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/C8LIwFaa2NBPnlzs_8QQ7A
China Fibres fashion