Materials widely used in the apparel and footwear industry, like nylon, have reliable and comprehensive carbon footprint data, as they have been extensively studied. While Carbonfact has a robust materials library, many brands use unique materials or new innovations that require custom solutions. That’s where our science team steps in, creating bespoke emission factors to accurately reflect the carbon impact of each brand’s specific materials and processes.
An emission factor quantifies the greenhouse gases emitted from specific activities or materials, such as energy use in manufacturing or the production of raw materials. To calculate the environmental footprint of a material or product, we need to quantify how much of a greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere by an activity or process (e.g. dyeing, spinning, shipping).
We do this with the help of activity-based emission factors, a coefficient that allows us to convert activity data into GHG emissions. It is the average emission rate of a given source.
At Carbonfact, we use Ecoinvent, one of the most comprehensive and widely used life cycle assessment (LCA) databases, to ensure the emission factors we provide are based on reliable and up-to-date data. Ecoinvent contains global data on energy production, raw materials, manufacturing processes, and more, allowing us to create precise emission factors for different products and locations.
This spring, we integrated Ecoinvent 3.10 into our LCA engine and updated our energy emission factors to reflect the most recent data. Read all about it here.
Apparel and footwear brands, however, often come to us with unique materials or manufacturing processes that require specialized emission factors beyond standard industry datasets. Here are some examples:
In these cases, relying on generic industry data would lead to high-uncertainty measurements that fail to reflect the true carbon impact of these specialized materials or processes.
A bespoke emission factor is a custom carbon footprint calculation tailored to specific materials, components, or production processes used by a brand. These bespoke factors offer a more accurate reflection of the carbon impact than generic industry averages, ensuring that sustainability managers can make well-informed, data-driven decisions to reduce emissions.
Brands often send us life cycle assessment (LCA) studies from their supply chain partners based on ISO 14040-14044 standards. These studies are typically focused on specific materials or processes. While we can incorporate this data into the Carbonfact platform, certain quality standards—such as boundary definitions, compliance, and completeness—must be met.
For example, one apparel client's emission factor for a key material didn’t account for up-to-date evaluations of N2O emissions from fertilizers, which are crucial for calculating climate impact. In this case, we provided guidance on improving their data, confident that they would meet our quality standards within the year.
In other cases, our science team creates bespoke LCA datasets by collecting primary data. Here are a few examples:
We also collaborate with suppliers to share anonymized data across our customer base, where appropriate. This approach not only reduces data collection efforts but also helps multiple brands explore the benefits of adopting new materials or processes using Carbonfact’s Product Impact Simulator.
Once a bespoke emission factor is created, our science team breaks it down to analyze the impact at different stages of the production process. Take polyester fabric as an example:
By breaking down the emission factor into these stages, we provide brands with deeper insights into where the most significant carbon impacts occur in their production processes.