Metrics

Customisation and personalised product has the potential to contribute to the emotional durability of clothing and hence increase its lifetime. This will reduce the environmental footprint of clothing by spreading the impacts of production across a greater lifetime, and displacing the need for new clothing.

For example, it is estimated that the production of one pair of jeans in China has a carbon footprint of 34 kg CO₂e, while research for WRAP suggests that the typical lifetime of trousers is two years [1]. The production-related carbon footprint is therefore 17 kg CO₂e per year. Doubling the lifetime of the jeans would halve this annual production footprint. At the same time it may displace the need for new jeans, which would give further carbon savings.

^1. WRAP, 2012, Valuing Our Clothes
^2. WRAP, 2012, key data sources for calculation were Ecoinvent 7.3.3; Danish Ministry of the Environment, 2007, "EDIPTEX"; Allwood et al, 2006, "Well Dressed?"

Image credit: WRAP - customising clothing