What to do to reduce the environmental impacts of one’s pair of jeans.

The following document is an Environmental Product Declaration, that means a collection of environmental information on a given product, based on a life cycle analysis conducted according to international ISO 14040 standards.
This document presents the environmental assessment of a pair of jeans, and the possible improvements that can be provided thanks to consumers’ sustainable purchasing and use behaviours.
This evaluation was conducted by Bio Intelligence Service in 2006 for the Department for Eco-Design and
Sustainable Development of the French Environment Agency ADEME.

What is a Life Cycle Assessment?

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a global analysis of the environmental impacts resulting from a product during its whole life cycle, that is from the moment of the extraction of raw materials to manufacturing, transportation and use and finally to the disposal of waste.
The consumptions and emissions of materials and energy for each step of the life cycle are quantified.
These data are then used to proceed to the assessment of a cluster of environmental impacts (energy consumption, greenhouse effect, exhaustion of natural resources, acidification, quantity of waste produced, etc...).

So as to facilitate the comparison of different designs of jeans and different uses that can be made of it, a common reference was introduced to express the materials and energy balance of the system life cycle. This is the functional unit of the environmental assessment.
The Functional Unit (FU) that has been chosen for this study is the following: « Wear jeans for one day ». Thanks to this unit of reference, the potential impacts which are generated all through the jeans life cycle can be assessed for its use for one day, thus taking its lifetime in consideration.

The life cycle assessment of jeans trousers was conducted in accordance with ISO 14040 standards and was peer reviewed. The following environmental product declaration is compliant with ISO 14025 standards (environmental labelling of type III).

The jeans under study

The pair of jeans which was considered in our study consists in trousers of blue denim material which have been slightly washed out. It weighs 666 grams (g), including 600g of denim material, 37.5g of lining fabric, 10.4g of double yarn, 3.6g of rivets (for a total of 6 rivets) et 14g of buttons (for a total of 4 buttons). The jeans are worn
1 day per week during 4 years, and are washed in a washing machine of class C at 40°C after they have been worn 3 times. When they are worn off, jeans are thrown away with household waste half the time, or are given or sold to a second user who will use them for another 4 years.

- The data related to the cultivation of cotton are representative of the production of cotton in the United States
(which is the 2nd world producer).
- The chosen locations of cultivation of cotton, as well as the transportation of raw cotton and the finalized jeans trousers are representative of jeans sold in France that are produced from cotton produced in India, Uzbekistan and Egypt.
- The given data relative to the treatment proceedings of cotton were extracted from the document on Best
Available Techniques (BAT) in the field of textiles and are therefore representative of the European situation.
- The given data relative to the production and treatment of jeans were provided by a company based in Tunisia that produces jeans trousers for a French brand.
- The given data relative to the use and the end of life of products are representative of the French situation.