Sustainable consumption - how to tell which goods are more sustainable? Comparing between fashion brands in Singapore

• Main Author: Neo, Edwina Jia Yi
• Other Authors: Qian Shunzhi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Environmental engineering::Environmental protection; Engineering::Environmental engineering::Environmental pollution
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163754
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global carbon dioxide output and many other environmental impacts. With progress on transparency in the global fashion industry still being too slow, many consumers are unaware of the environmental impacts of the fashion product life cycle and are sometimes misdirected by claims of sustainability improvements and efforts. Consumers hence consume fashion products without realizing what is the true cost of fashion. This report hence aims to show how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be used to assess and compare the environmental impacts of the product life cycle of fashion brands. The data required for the study of three fashion brands will be modelled against three fashion brands operating in Singapore, renamed to Brand A, B, and C to maintain anonymity. Research was first conducted to gather all necessary data from the material extraction phase to the end-of-life phase to be entered into the LCA tool, Simapro v9.4.0, where results will show the environmental impacts of a product life cycle based on impact categories specified by the chosen method used. As mentioned earlier, there is a lack of transparency in the fashion industry. This means there were limited data provided and published by the brands regarding their own consumption and waste disposal methods. Thus, assumptions had to be made in order to complete data collection before inputs can be entered into Simapro. Results from Simapro were then analysed during Impact Assessment, where the highest impacted categories were identified to find out the cause of impacts. The report then concludes by identifying the least and most sustainable brands to highlight the better consumption choice for fashion retail consumers.