Measure & improve the footprint of your apparel.
With Ecochain.
Whether it’s a single pair of jeans or your complete portfolio. Measure credible environmental footprints of your products efficiently – with Ecochain. Zoom into any part of your products, processes or value chain. And reduce environmental impact where it really matters.
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Take control over your sustainability performance:
With Helix you measure environmental footprints at scale, for all your apparel products. Increase measurement efficiency, reduce costs per footprint, and generate strategic sustainable insights into your value chain. Understand the impact of all your manufacturing processes and focus your improvement efforts.
Powered by Activity-based Footprinting
Measure and improve the footprint of your apparel products yourself – in no time. Gain credible footprint insights into every aspect of your product. Test different fabrics, processes & designs with the extensive impact database and scenarios feature. And model the impact as you go. Fast, Easy, Credible.
Powered by Object-based Footprinting
Goodbye, expensive experts & sloooow measurement processes.
Hello, dynamic environmental footprinting.
Impact measurements, made for business.
Our easy footprint tools are built to deliver strategic sustainable business insights - not academic research.
Full control over your environmental data.
Your suppliers & products constantly change. Implement every update - and access your most recent footprint data.
Made for internal & external collaborating.
Our tools are made for easy collaboration, across departments and your suppliers. Making sure everyone's one board.
"We started with a "box of data". But Ecochain Helix helped us turn our data into a sustainable story that helps us connect with our customers."
"Ecochain has allowed us to print footprint decisions to the earliest stage of our planning process, allowing us to proactively plan more sustainable product lines vs. forcing us to react months after a review."
"Customers increasingly ask for different sustainability criteria - this also concerns footprint information. We knew little about the impact of the sustainability initiatives we already executed and have planned. As we didn’t yet have quantitative insights. With Ecochain’s tool Mobius we now have extensive footprint reports for three representative shoe models, clearly outlining the impact from the production to the end of life phase."
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Stories of our customers in textile & apparel:
Our environmental specialists will guide your way
Not ready to measure your footprint all on your own? Want to check if you interpreted your results correctly? Don’t worry. Our team of experienced environmental specialists can assist you in implementing our tools and answer all your questions along the way.
Step 1
Fiber Production
For any piece of apparel, the first step is to produce the fiber that is used to create the product. This could be synthetic fibers, cellulose, cotton, or other natural fibers.
Cotton is sometimes referred to as the dirtiest fiber in the world – more than 16% of global insecticides are used for its production. Growing cotton for one jeans and one t-shirt takes 20.000 liters of water.
Organic cotton and other natural fibers might be a solution, but they account for less than 1% of global cotton industry.
Step 1
Step 2
Yarn Preparation
Processing the raw fibers to yarn is a process that requires a lot of energy. A lot of different machines are involved to process the unstable, irregular fibers and filament to a durable yarn.
Step 2
Step 3
Fabric Production
The knitting and weaving of yarn into fabric is a step in the production chain that takes a comparably little amount of energy. However, almost 10% of the impact of the apparel industry occurs by producing the fabric.
Step 3
Step 4
Dyeing & Finishing
Dyeing and finishing accounts for more than a quarter of the footprint of the apparel industry. It is the most energy intensive stage, as dyeing has a high energy demand due to wet processes which require large amounts of heated water. Many chemicals, such as bleach, are used in this step.
Step 4
Step 5
Assembly
Assembling apparel accounts for only 5% of the footprint of the apparel industry. It is labor intensive, but a lot of the labor is still conducted manually, and the energy requirements of the machines are more moderate. However, the social implications of manufacturing clothing are a prominent subject of dispute.
Step 5
Step 6
Distribution
The distribution and retail of the clothing we wear accounts only for 1% of the total footprint.
Step 6
Step 7
Use Phase
The consumer use phase is where the product is handled, washed, repaired, and possibly passed on. The magnitude of this phase’s impact involves assumptions about consumer behaviors, which vary widely in the real world. The main drivers are the energy and water consumption from washing, as well as energy-intensive drying.
Step 7
We do the research.
You make the impact.
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