Wool in Life Cycle Assessments and Design Tools - SIFO

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14. Nike Environmental Apparel Design ToolThe Nike Environmental Apparel Design Tool 15 serves as functional calculator with the ability tomeasure the impact of materials commonly used in manufacturing apparel products. The Toolevaluates waste, energy, toxics and water in materials and manufacturing, enabling NIKE to influencethe most significant components of a product’s environmental impact.The tool takes a pragmatic, strategic life cycle management approach where sustainability is viewedas a journey rather than a static measurement of impacts. The use of product scores and labels suchas Gold, Silver and Bronze for scoring and communication helps to simplify a complex task, makingsustainability concrete enough to bring designers on board, giving them the information andincentives to make a real impact through design choices.“Nike is releasing its Environmental Apparel Design Tool with supporting data andmethodology for public review. We hope by sharing this knowledge it will acceleratecollaboration and encourage broader adoption of sustainability principles…. It is abeginning; a building block from which something better can be created.” 16Scientifically based and designed to be simple-to-use.Numbers-based, so a direct product, material, or process comparison becomes practical,understandable, and realistic to benchmark against.Easy-to-use and fits easily within the already demanding workload of our intended audiences:product creation teams, product designers, product managers, material suppliers and productmanufacturers, students and universities, industry groups, and interested NGOs.Its aim at the ability to make more informed design choices, increasing efficiency and reducing wasteThe tool is based upon a Material Analyses Tool based on lifecycle thinking. Each material is assigneda numeric value that translates into a sustainability score for our products. The MAT framework iscomprised of a set of environmental impact questions, in four categories; Energy, Human Toxicology,Waste management and water consumption. 17Treatment recipes containing enzymes, chemicals, and additives, varying degrees of water use andwater temperature, treatment time, and mechanical distressing can all be combined in an infinitenumber of ways and intensity levels, and applied to a finished garment. No two combinations are thesame. Exact recipes may be closely guarded trade secrets, and are often seen as a wash-house’scompetitive advantage. All of this complexity, though, adds up to a simple reality: garmenttreatments amount to additional energy, water, chemistry, and / or potential waste in themanufacturing process. Not typically considered in most industry indexes, we believe garmentprocesses should be assessed because they clearly result in additional environmental impacts.15 http://www.nikebiz.com/responsibility/nikeenvironmentaldesigntool17 (Brown and Willmanns performed the MAT for NIKE, as well as the MAdeBy LCA. red.)22
From this ‘whole systems’ perspective, it needs to be clearly stated that there is no suchthing as a sustainable or an unsustainable material or product; there are only sustainablematerial and resourcemanagement practices. Product and material sustainability claimstherefore need to be viewed carefully, and as part of a journey toward sustainability – onethat has many possible pathways.The Natural Step 2010NIKE discusses some important issues and challenges related to weighting of impacts:“When we began work on our materials tool, we wrestled with tough environmental questionsregarding environmental tradeoffs. For example, how should we evaluate the impacts of waterintensity with CO2 emissions with carcinogenicity? The impact weighting in this version of the toolreflects Nike values when we first developed it in 2008. At that time, chemistry was given 40% of theoverall weight, energy/CO2 24%, waste 20%, and water/land 16%. Over the past year, Nike’sConsidered Team has determined that there is no industry consensus or standard point of viewregarding the relative weighting of environmental impact area. For that reason we have drafted anew version of MAT with revised weighting, framework, impact metrics, and MAT data methodology.One of the key changes will be in MAT v2.0 is equally weighting each impact area – energy/CO2,ater/land, waste, and chemistry are all worth 25% of the total possible points”.15. EcoIndexThis Ecoindex 18 is developed by the Outdoor Industry Assosiation. It is a tool for development andevaluation of complete garments and products, including packaging. It is based upon life cyclethinking for complete products. While the long-term goal is a data-driven life cycle evaluation there islittle to no data yet collected. The current approach uses indicators. It rates one piece of garmentand packaging, not the fiber as such, and makes it easy to compare with other similar products. Thismakes it a very practical tool for designers and manufacturers. It has a positive focus of preferableinputs.The Eco Index is designed to help determine how the industry measures its environmental footprintthroughout the supply chain, involving five of the six product life cycle stages: Materials, Packaging,Product Manufacturing and Assembly, Use and Service, and End of Life. Measurement tools withinthe areas of water, waste, and energy use/greenhouse gas emissions have also been developed.The indicators used are among many; recycled content, renewable content, organic cotton,responsible chemical use, source certification, and design for recyclability.The products are declared in Bills of Material (BOM) with weight and volume of the different fibers,weighted according to possible qualitative environmental impact, and added up to indicators for thedifferent products.18 www.europeanoutdoorgoup.com23
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Page 5: 3. SummaryLife Cycle Analysis (LCA)
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Wool in Life Cycle Assessments and Design Tools - SIFO

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