Over the past three years, the Cotton Research and Development Corporation has contributed to an initiative led by Cascale (formerly the Sustainable Apparel Coalition) to develop a new methodology for aligning cotton Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approaches.
The project, a collaboration supported by many global cotton industry programs including Better Cotton, Textile Exchange, Cotton Incorporated and the Organic Cotton Accelerator addresses a longstanding challenge in the sector, the lack of a standardised method for calculating and analysing environmental impact metrics from LCAs.
With more confidence in this new approach, LCA data for Australian cotton is included in the HIGG Index for the first time and is now available to Cascale members.
“Life Cycle Assessments can be useful to pinpoint impact hotspots in a specific value chain, but may also be misused to compare the impacts of different commodities in different geographies – something they are not designed to do and can’t do,” Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC) Executive Director Allan Williams said.
“This Cascale initiative shows the desire of our peers around the world to ensure if an LCA method is used – such as for hotspot analysis, risk assessment, and demonstrating impact – it uses best available data, and complements the Australian cotton industry’s long record of collaboration and data transparency.
“The Australian cotton industry expects this new Cascale Cotton Methodology will give textile and apparel customers greater confidence in Australian cotton and potentially help them identify areas to work with the Australian cotton industry to further reduce their impacts,” Mr Williams said.
For more information: www.cascale.org