Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Review

A systematic review of the life cycle environmental performance of cotton

textile products
⁎
Shuang Chen a, Lisha Zhu b, , Lirong Sun c, Qianwen Huang a, Ying Zhang a, Xin Li a, Xiangyu Ye d,
⁎⁎
Yi Li f,g, Laili Wang a,e,f,
a
School of Fashion Design & Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310018, China
b
College of Textile Science and Engineering (International Institute of Silk), Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310018, China
c
Office for Social Responsibility, China, National Textile and Apparel Council, Beijing 100027
d
Zhejiang Light Industrial Products Inspection and Research Institute, Hangzhou 310018, China
e
Zhejiang Provincial Innovation Center of Advanced Textile Technology, Shaoxing 312000, China
f
Green and low-carbon technology and industrialization of modern logistics, Zhejiang Engineering Research Center, Wenzhou 325100, China
g
Fashion Department, Collaborative Innovation Center of Port Economy, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Systematically reviewed environment im-

pacts of cotton textiles.
• Modular method improves comparability
of environment impacts of cotton textiles.
• Returning carbonized cotton straw to the
field can retain about 50 % of carbon.
• Economic allocation is mostly used to
assess environment impacts of cotton
textiles.
• Environment credits of recycling relate to
recycling rate and recycling quality.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Editor: Deyi Hou The production of cotton textiles involves cotton cultivation, ginning, spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, finishing, cut-
ting and sewing. It consumes large quantities of freshwater, energy and chemicals, causing serious environmental im-
Keywords: pacts. The environmental impacts of cotton textiles have been studied extensively through various methods. However,
Cotton textiles
little literature comprehensively summarizes current status of researches on environmental impact of cotton clothing
System boundary
comprehensively and identifies common problems to further study. To fill this gap, this study collates published results
Allocation methods
Carbon storage
on the environmental performance of cotton clothing based on different environmental impact assessment methods,
Recycling i.e., life cycle assessment, carbon footprint, and water footprint. Apart from the environmental impact results, this
study also discusses the key issues when assessing the environmental impact of cotton textiles, such as data collection,
carbon storage, allocation methods, and the environment benefits brought by recycling. In the production process of
cotton textile products, there will be other co-products with economic value so that the environmental impact should
be allocated. The economic allocation method is the most widely used method in the existing researches. In the future,
considerable efforts are required to construct the accounting modules which consist of multiple modules, each represent-
ing a production process of cotton clothing and including an inventory of inputs under that process, such as cotton
cultivation (water, fertilizer, pesticides), and spinning (electricity). It can ultimately be used to flexibly invoke one or
more modules to calculate the environmental impact of cotton textiles. Moreover, returning carbonized cotton straw to
the field can retain about 50 % of carbon, thus having a certain potential for carbon sequestration.

⁎ Corresponding author.
⁎⁎ Correspondence to: Laili Wang, School of Fashion Design & Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310018, China
E-mail addresses: zhulisha@zstu.edu.cn (L. Zhu), wangll@zstu.edu.cn (L. Wang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163659
Received 29 December 2022; Received in revised form 12 April 2023; Accepted 18 April 2023
Available online 24 April 2023
0048-9697/© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
S. Chen et al. Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Search strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Study selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Data extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on life cycle assessment method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.2. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on carbon footprint method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.3. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on water footprint method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. Accounting system boundary and data collection of cotton textiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.2. Allocation method of environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3. Carbon storage of cotton textiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.4. Environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles at the end of life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
CRediT authorship contribution statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Data availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Declaration of competing interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Appendix A. Supplementary data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

1. Introduction
Global production of fiber reached 113 million tons in 2021 (Textile
Exchanges, 2022) due to the massive consumption. In global fiber produc-
tion, cotton fiber is the second most produced fiber after polyester in 2021,
accounting for 22 %, while recycled cotton accounts for 1 % and organic cot-
ton for 1.4 % (Textile Exchanges, 2022). As clothing consumption increases,
the environmental impact caused by fashion industry also becomes greater
(Stone et al., 2020). For example, if fashion industry continues to produce
as usual, it is estimated that carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could reach
2791 million tons in 2030 (Kerr and Landry, 2017). In the process of conven-
tional cotton cultivation, intensive water, energy, pesticides and fertilizers
are consumed, and large amounts of land are occupied, all of which have neg-
ative impacts on the environment and human health (Bevilacqua et al., 2014;
Chapagain et al., 2006; La Rosa and Grammatikos, 2019).
To date, quantitative environmental impacts assessment tools such as
life cycle assessment, environmental footprint, and eco-efficiency indica-
tors have been widely used to manage product-related human activities,
with carbon footprint (CF) and water footprint (WF) being two of the
most commonly used indicators in the textile sector (Luo et al., 2021). A
great number of scholars have studied the environmental impacts of cotton
textiles based on different methods. Karthik and Murugan (2017) calcu-
lated the carbon footprint of denim manufacturing from cotton fiber to con-
sumer use, and they also identified the manufacturing processes that
contribute most to greenhouse gas emissions. Vos (2019) performed a
water footprint assessment on a pair of blue jeans, with spatial variation
in scarcity taken into consideration. The results revealed that raw materials
(64 %) and consumer washing (32 %) dominated the blue water footprint.
Qian et al. (2020) assessed the chemical footprint (ChF) of 1 kg cotton
woven fabric from yarn to finished fabric. The results showed that the
total ChF associated with ecotoxicity in the calculation boundary was ap-
proximately 41,526.10 PAF·m3·d. The largest ChF of cotton woven fabrics
mainly came from the weaving process, followed by the cultivation and
harvesting, and fabric processing phases.
To further study, some literature which reviewed the environment im-
pacts of fashion industry was published. For example, Niinim¨aki et al.
(2020) identified the environmental impacts at critical points in the textile
and fashion value chain, from production to consumption, focusing on
water use, chemical pollution, CO2 emissions and textile waste.
Munasinghe et al. (2021) collated data through a systematic literature re-
view and meta-analysis, to provide detailed life cycle inventory data
concerning inputs (such as water, energy, chemicals and raw materials),
and outputs (such as releases to air, land, and water) that arise at all stages
of the life cycle of clothing. Chen et al. (2021) selected relevant papers ac-
cording to two criteria: life cycle assessment of cotton textiles and footprint
of cotton textiles, and analyzed some key features, i.e. functional unit, sys-
tem boundary, data sources and geographic location, and impact assess-
ment methods and impact categories. However, there is a lack of
comprehensive analysis of the environmental impact of cotton textiles. In
particularly, specific key issues that exist in the whole life cycle of cotton
textiles, such as the carbon storage path during the cotton planting stage
and the allocation principle of environmental impact results between
main and by-products, as well as the calculation of environmental credits
during the waste recycling stage of cotton textiles, have not been systema-
tically summarized.
This review aims to provide a phased summary of all research papers on
environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles up to now. On the one
hand, through a systematic literature review, this study synthesizes pub-
lished results on the environmental performance of cotton clothing. These
data are analyzed according to different environmental impact assessment
methods, i.e., life cycle assessment, carbon footprint, and water footprint.
On the other hand, the key issues when assessing the environmental impact
of cotton textiles are discussed, i.e. data collection, carbon storage, alloca-
tion methods, and the environment benefits brought by recycling. All of
the above will be useful for practitioners to use as a basis for decision
making to improve the sustainability of the fashion industry. The discussion
of key issues can be conducive to guiding enterprises in energy conserva-
tion and carbon reduction, and promoting green development of fashion
industry. Furthermore, this study is expected to point out the direction for
in-depth research by experts and scholars on environmental impact assess-
ment of cotton textiles and clothing.
To make existing environmental assessment methods more targeted and
more precisely represent the production and processing characteristics of
cotton clothing.
The study is structured as follows: Section 2, i.e. methodology chapter,
explains the criteria for searching for and selecting publications, as well as
what information were extracted from the selected publications. Section 3
describes the results of the environmental performance assessment of cotton
textiles. Section 4 discusses the key issues, i.e., accounting system boundary
and data collection, allocation methods of environmental impact results, car-
bon storage and environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles at the
end of life, and Section 5 presents conclusions and recommendations.

2
S. Chen et al.
Fig. 1. The criteria for searching for and selecting publications.
2. Methodology
2.1. Search strategy
The literature was searched using online databases Web of Science Core
Collection. The search was conducted during the months from August to
October 2022 with the search restricted to academic articles published
2009–2022 to obtain the most up-to-date. The review used a set of
keywords for the literature search. The keywords were categorized into
three areas: environment impact assessment methods, cotton, and textiles
categories. Specifically, the following search terms were used: “life cycle
assessment”, “carbon footprint”, “water footprint”, “chemical footprint”,
“cotton”, “fiber”, “yarn”, “fabric”, “clothing”, “garment”, “apparel”,
“product”, “textiles”. We also sought additional relevant articles from the
references of studies identified in the search process.
2.2. Study selection
All the selected articles were initially filtered by eliminating meeting,
thesis and reviews, only keeping research articles, which referred to articles
containing data, methods, and results of the environmental impact assess-
ment of cotton textiles. The second round of filtration focused on the rele-
vancy of the papers, and those were not related to cotton textiles or
environmental impact assessment methods such as life cycle assessment,
carbon footprint, and water footprint chemical footprint were excluded.
The final round of filtration was conducted by screening through the full
papers. Eliminations at this stage were based on the quality and clarity of
data, and transparency of the numerical calculations, i.e. whether the
data sources, data collection methods, and life cycle inventory data in the
literature were clear, whether the accounting system boundary and func-
tional unit were described clearly.
The initial search results gave 543 journal articles, with the first and sec-
ond filtration processes giving 526 and 77 articles respectively, as shown in
Fig. 1. The final filtration process yielded 16 papers.
3
Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659
2.3. Data extraction
The 16 research articles filtered were scrutinized carefully and relative
information in those studies was then extracted to Microsoft Excel. On the
one hand, general information, such as title of the article, journal, published
year, authors, and country of the study were extracted in order to identify
the context of each study. On the other hand, calculation-related informa-
tion, such as evaluation methods, functional units, accounting system
boundaries, impact categories, and evaluation results, was extracted for
subsequent analysis. After careful review, based on the three environmental
impact assessment methods, i.e. life cycle assessment, carbon footprint, and
water footprint, the 16 articles ultimately filtered were divided into three
categories, as is shown in Fig. 1.
3. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles
3.1. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on life cycle assessment
method
LCA is used internationally by industrial enterprises, government ad-
ministrations and service industries, but its most prominent contribution
is in the area of environmental management. The technical framework of
LCA is divided into four parts: determination of purpose and scope, inven-
tory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation of results. LCA
methods can be divided into midpoint method and endpoint method. The
former mainly includes EDPI, CML2001, EPS, TRACI, and LUCAS, while
the latter mainly includes Eco indicator 95, Eco indicator 99, IMPACT
2002 + and ReCiPe (Duan and Cheng, 2008).In this paper, the environ-
mental impact results of cotton textiles assessed by the life cycle assessment
method in the existing literature are summarized, and the results are shown
in Table 1.
Table 1 contains information on functional units, system boundaries,
data sources, impact categories, and impact assessment results. Nine impact
categories that were most selected when evaluating cotton textiles are
S. Chen et al. Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659

shown, in Table 1, and the other impact categories shown in the supple-

(La Rosa and Grammatikos, 2019) (Moazzem et al., 2021)

mentary materials.
It can be seen from Table 1 that when studying the environmental per-

Cradle-to-grave
formance of cotton textiles over their life cycle, impact indicators those are
1 kg cotton used the most frequently can be categorized into 5 areas: climate change
T-shirt

27.14
(global warming potential), acidification potential, water consumption,

0.14

3.2①
toxicity and eutrophication potential. This is because large amounts of
water are consumed during the cotton cultivation, bleaching and dying pro-
cesses. In addition, the fertilizers and pesticides used in cotton cultivation
and the chemicals applied in cotton textile production can release toxic
chemicals into the environment, causing harm to ecosystems and humans.
Cradle-to-(yarn) gate

Besides, the energy consumed throughout the life cycle of cotton textiles,
1000 pieces of shirts(from 1 piece of 100 % cotton 1 kg dyed yarn

such as diesel, electricity, and natural gas, serves as the largest contributor
0.1 × 10−3

to climate change.
It can be seen from Table 1 that the influence of organic cotton is gener-
0.038①
0.023

0.048
9.75①

ally smaller than that of conventional cotton in the existing studies. How-
ever, Sphera (formerly known as Thinkstep, a leading commercial
provider of LCAs and impact data) conducted a simultaneous life cycle as-
short-sleeved T-shirt

(Zhang et al., 2015)

sessment of cotton fiber produced under different cultivation systems in

Cradle-to-grave

the same place, and the results revealed that blue (irrigation) water con-
sumption per ton of seed cotton production is 1.71 × 106 kg for conven-
tional cotton, 1.88 × 106 kg for organic cotton and 1.75 × 106 kg for
0.0535
0.0186

1770②
6.05

58.1

better cotton (Laudes Foundation, 2018). In other words, organic cotton

consumes 10 % more water per ton of seed cotton than conventional pro-
Cradle-to-(clothing) gate Cradle-to-(clothing) gate

duction, which means that the irrigation water requirements of crops are
mainly determined by climatic conditions, and the actual usage is also influ-
(Kazan et al., 2020)

enced by irrigation techniques(Textile Exchange, 2014). In addition, the

organic cotton)

use of synthetic fertilizers is prohibited in organic farming, which relies

mainly on farmyard manure to provide essential soil nutrients (Ozlu
65,311②

70,155
1221

334②

et al., 2019), and the impact of manure production is generally excluded

2.18

from LCAs of organic cotton (Kassatly, 2019). However, organic fertilizer

requires a certain amount of energy and materials to be consumed, from
1000 pieces of shirts

manure to fertilizer. In addition, manure, if it enters the water supply, can

(Kazan et al., 2020)
(from conventional

be both a major source of eutrophication, and toxic to both humans and an-
1.50 × 10−10

imals (Strokal et al., 2016). Thus, to exclude the upstream impact of manure
is to underestimate the impact of organic cotton cultivation.
347.13②
16,324②
cotton)

96,658

In the LCA assessment of cotton textiles, the selected impact category in-
4113

4.17

dicators such as global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential

(AP), eutrophication potential (EP) are midpoint indicators, and the impact
End of life -to- (yarn) gate

of pollutants is assessed by using the equivalence of reference substances.

For the impact assessment of acidification and eutrophication of cotton tex-
(Liu et al., 2020)
Environmental impacts results of cotton textiles base on life cycle assessment method.

tiles, the impact categories may include freshwater acidification/eutrophi-

(from recycled

4.35 × 10−8

19.8 × 10−3
1000 kg yarn

cation or terrestrial acidification/eutrophication, depending on the

cotton)

characterization method used and the issues to be addressed. In addition,

0.247①
69.2①
4380

583①
5.62

0.45

the reference substance varies from different evaluation methods. For ex-
ample, in terms of acidification, kg SO2 eq is used in CML 2001, IMPACT
Cradle-to-(yarn) gate

2002+, ReCiPe and acidification EDIP, while H+ eq is used in EPS. For eu-
(Liu et al., 2020)

trophication, CML and kg PO3− 4 eq is used in IMPACT 2002+, kg P eq is

2.47 × 10−8
1000 kg yarn

used in ReCiPe, and kg NO−

2.8 × 10−3
(from virgin

3 eq is used in EDIP. In terms of photochemical

oxidant formation, ReCiPe uses kg NOx eq, while IMPACT 2002+ and
cotton)

11,000

0.127①
3514①
68.8①
5.84

0.29

CML2001 use kg ethylene(Duan and Cheng, 2008; Dreyer et al., 2003;

Huijbregts et al., 2017). This makes it difficult to form consistent conclu-
Marine ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq①; kg DCB eq②)
Freshwater eutrophication (kg P eq to freshwater)

sions about which factor contributes most to the overall environmental bur-
Human toxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq①; kg DCB eq②)

den under a nonuniform LCA methods.

Freshwater ecotoxicity (kg 1,4-DCB eq)

3.2. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on carbon footprint

Water depletion (m3 water eq①;kg②)
Terrestrial acidification (kg SO2 eq)

method
Abiotic depletion-fossil (MJ)
Climate Change (kg CO2 eq)

As many countries or organizations have developed and launched car-

bon footprint accounting standards at different system levels, there are
many types of carbon footprint standards. According to the system level
Reference sources
System boundary

Ozone depletion
(kg CFC-11 eq)

of the assessment object, the carbon footprint standard can be broadly clas-
Function unit

sified into three levels: national, sectoral or regional level. Firstly, the IPCC
Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and the ICLEI Guidelines for
Table 1

Urban Greenhouse Gas Inventories are commonly used. Secondly, at the level
of enterprise and organization activity levels, it mainly includes the

4
S. Chen et al.
Table 2
Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on carbon footprint method.
Function unit System boundary
1 piece of cotton jeans Cradle-to-grave
1 piece of denim jacket From cutting to sewing and finishing
1 kg cotton fiber Cradle to ginning gate
1 piece of pure cotton shirt (0.28 kg) Cradle-to-use
1 kg cotton lint Cradle-to-port
1 kg cotton T-shirt Form clothing inspection to T-shirt baling
1 kg cotton lint Cradle-to-port
1 piece of trouser jeans Cradle-to-(clothing) gate
1 kg cotton fabric Gate-to-(fabric) gate
Greenhouse Gas Accounting System: Enterprise Accounting and Reporting
Standards and ISO 14064 Standard Series. Thirdly, at the product level,
there are three main international standards, namely, the PAS 2050: 2011
Specification for Assessent of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Life Cycle of
Products and Services, the GHG Protocol and the ISO14067 Technical
Specification for Requirements and Guidance of Quantification and Communica-
tion of Product Carbon Footprint. Among them, the most widely used are PAS
2050, GHG Protocol and ISO14067 (Li, 2019). The results of the existing
literature on the assessment of the environmental impact of cotton textiles
using the CF method are summarized, and the results are presented in
Table 2.
Table 2 contains information of functional units, system boundaries,
data sources, and carbon footprint assessment results. In terms of functional
units, when a functional unit is converted from 1 t to 1 kg, the correspond-
ing carbon footprint value is also reduced by 1000 times. The conversion of
other functional units is the same. The converted functional units are shown
in Table 2. For cotton textiles other than clothing, such as fibers, yarns, and
fabrics, the functional units are all 1 kg, and for clothing, the functional
units are all 1 piece. In addition, the selected system boundaries for calcu-
lating the carbon footprint of cotton textile products and final carbon foot-
print values were shown in Table 2.
As shown in Table 2, when the functional units of various cotton textiles
are converted into 1 kg or 1 piece, the carbon footprint values of cotton
fiber range from 1.42 to 4.430 kg CO2 eq/kg, the carbon footprint values
of cotton fabric ranged from 11.17 to 34.90 kg CO2 eq/kg, the carbon
Fig. 2. Carbon footprint of cotton textiles in specific life cycle phases.
5
Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659
CF value (kg CO2 eq) Reference resource
90.37 (Luo et al., 2022)
1.75 (Cheng and Liang, 2021)
4.43 (Günther et al., 2017)
8.771 (Wang et al., 2015)
1.06 (Hedayati et al., 2019)
1.34 (Li et al., 2019)
1.42 (Visser et al., 2015)
7.86 (Morita et al., 2020)
11.17–34.90 (Van der Velden et al., 2014)
footprint values of cotton clothing range from 1.34 to 90.37 kg CO2 eq/
piece. It can be seen that the carbon footprint values of cotton textiles can
be dozens of times larger/smaller than the counterparts with the same func-
tional unit. In addition to functional units, the reason for the large differ-
ence in carbon footprint of cotton textiles lies in the difference in system
boundaries, production processes and so on(Van der Velden et al., 2014).
Further, this study screened out articles that had calculated the carbon
footprint values of cotton textiles' specific life cycle phases, and summa-
rized the carbon footprint values of each specific life cycle phases in differ-
ent studies. The extracted data of carbon footprint value were graphed
according to specific life cycle phases, as shown in Fig. 2. Data sources of
Fig. 2 can be seen in Supplementary Materials (Tables 4, 5).
It can be seen from Fig. 2 that most carbon footprint studies have fo-
cused on the raw material extraction of cotton textiles, while little attention
has been paid to the use and end of life of cotton textiles. In general, the in-
dustrial production stage, especially the weaving and making-up stage, con-
tributes the most to the carbon footprint value, while cotton textile products
have a greater potential for carbon storage during the raw material extrac-
tion stage. However, it can also be seen from Fig. 2 that the carbon footprint
values calculated by different articles at the same specific life cycle stage are
quite different, mainly due to the differences in functional units, process
conditions, input energy or materials. For example, during the making-up
phase, T-shirts generally do not require washing after sewing, while jeans
require washing, which means jeans usually consume additional water,
electricity, and especially chemical additives. In addition, during the
S. Chen et al.
spinning process, when working efficiency of the same type of equipment is
different, the electricity consumed is also different, resulting in different
final carbon footprint results.
3.3. Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on water footprint
method
So far, many studies on the water footprint of cotton textiles have been
conducted in the literature. It is worth noting that the emphasis of each re-
search and the methods used are different over time. In terms of previous
researches on water footprint of cotton textiles, they mainly focused on
the impact of cotton trade on the country's water resource deprivation
(Chapagain et al., 2006). Additionally, due to the large water consumption
in the cotton agricultural stage, water footprint in the cotton agricultural
stage is also the focus (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2011). After 2010, the
water footprint of typical cotton textiles began to be noticed, including
jeans, cotton knitwear and process water footprint (Naqvi et al., 2018;
Wang et al., 2012; Zhang et al., 2021). As described in Methodology, this
paper selected researches that assess the environmental impact of cotton
textiles based on water footprint method, and the results of the environ-
mental impact of cotton textiles using the water footprint method are sum-
marized, as presented in Table 3.
Table 3 contains information of functional units, system boundaries,
data sources, and water footprint assessment results. The WF calculation
of cotton textiles can be carried out by two methods, the Water Footprint
Network (WFN) method and the ISO 14046 method (Luo et al., 2021). As
can be seen from Table 2, studies in earlier years have used the former
method, while studies in recent years have used the latter method for
water footprint assessment. In the WFN method, water footprint is a com-
prehensive evaluation index to measure the direct and indirect water re-
sources occupied by human activities, including blue water, green water
consumed and grey water footprint caused by pollution load. In addition,
the ISO 14046 method categorizes water footprint into water scarcity foot-
print and water degradation footprint, which are employed to measure the
potential environmental impacts associated with negative changes in water
quantity and water quality, respectively (ISO, 2014). However, the WFN
method mainly focuses on the assessment of water consumption, while
ISO 14046 method combined with LCA can realize the quantification of
environmental impact. Considering the specificity and complexity of textile
chemicals used in the production of cotton textiles, the adoption of ISO
14046 method has a higher interpretability for the specific pollution
situation of the water environment and is also more instructive for environ-
mental pollution control.
4. Discussion
4.1. Accounting system boundary and data collection of cotton textiles
The whole life cycle process of cotton textiles can be categorized into 7
stages: raw material extraction, spinning, weaving, finishing, making-up,
consumer use, and end of life. and each stage can be subdivided into
multiple segments. For example, the raw material extraction stage mainly
includes land preparation, sowing, harvesting, and the spinning stage
Table 3
Environmental impact results of cotton textiles based on water footprint method.
Function unit
System boundary
Data source
Impact category The ISO 14046 method Water scarcity footprint(m3 H2O eq)
Water eutrophication footprint(kg PO3−
4 eq)
Water acidification footprint(kg SO2 eq)
3
Water ecotoxicity footprint(m H2O eq)
The WFN method Green water footprint(m3)
Blue water footprint(m3)
Grey water footprint(m3)
6
Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659
Fig. 3. System boundary of environmental impacts assessment of cotton textiles.
mainly includes yarn clearing, carding, drawing and winding, and so on.
To identify system boundaries those commonly selected in research litera-
ture, the system boundaries employed in the 16 pieces of literature to assess
the environmental impacts of cotton textiles are shown in Fig. 3. Data
source can be seen in Supplementary Material (Table 6).
The color of the arrow represents the number of papers applying the
corresponding system boundary, and the starting and ending of the arrows
represent the starting and ending of the system boundary used in the 16
pieces of literature, respectively. It can be seen from Fig. 3 that the number
of articles with “raw material extraction” as system boundary accounts for
the highest proportion of about 25.00 %, followed by “raw material extrac-
tion to end of life” and “raw material extraction to making-up”, which
accounts for 18.75 %. It can also be seen from Fig. 3 that the system bound-
aries chosen by different studies usually remain subjective and do not have
a uniform standard. More importantly, for the same system boundary se-
lected by different studies, the inputs are not actually identical, which
leads to the fact that the current studies remain independent of each
other and difficult to compare directly or analyze in an integrated manner.
Data collection during the industrial manufacturing stage is particularly
challenging due to the wide variety of materials and complicated processes
flows (Zhang et al., 2018). Specifically, the whole life cycle phase of cotton
textiles contains a variety of subdivision processes, such as the raw material
extraction stage can be subdivided into land preparation, sowing, harvest-
ing, and ginning, the spinning stage can be subdivided into opening and
cleaning, carding, drawing, etc. And most subdivision processes involve
multiple technology alternatives, such as the fineness requirements of the
yarn produced, whether the fabric is twill or plain, and each different pro-
cess requires different materials (dyes, bleach, packaging materials etc.),
electricity and water consumption. Besides, the primary data required for
the CF and WF assessment needs to be collected through on-site inspec-
tions, it is quite time-consuming and labor-intensive (Hackett, 2015;
Wang et al., 2015). However, almost all existing cotton textiles are pro-
duced in series. For example, most of the grey fabrics in the printing and
1 piece of cotton jeans 1 piece of jeans trousers 1 t cotton fiber
Cradle-to-grave Gate to (fabric) gate From tilling to harvesting
(Luo et al., 2022) (Chico et al., 2013) (Zhang et al., 2021)
90.37 1.44 × 103
1.67 × 10−2 2.16
21.6
112.41 2.25 × 104
263
2767
203
S. Chen et al.
dyeing stage need to go through production processes such as grey fabric in-
spection, printing and dyeing, and finishing, and the energy and materials
consumed per unit of time can be considered constant during normal oper-
ation. In view of this, the modular theory was proposed. Modularization
means that decomposing a system into several modules, and each module
can be further decomposed into several small modules. Finally, the complex
system is decomposed into small modules with clear structure (Zhang et al.,
2023). For cotton textiles, a modular database can be constructed based on
the whole life cycle (Zheng et al., 2010; Yang et al., 2013). Specifically, it
can be divided into three levels: the life cycle phases of cotton textiles are
at the first level, i.e. the raw material extraction stage, the industrial
production stage, the consumption and use stage, and the end of life
stage. The various process flows of cotton textiles are at the second level,
such as spinning, weaving, finishing, and making-up in the industrial
production stage. The subdivided process flows of the cotton textiles pro-
duction process are at the third level, such as cotton opening, cleaning,
carding, and drawing under spinning. Sharing and reusing cotton textile
production data can be achieved by clarifying the input and output of
each module, such as dyes, bleach, packaging materials, and wastewater
discharge. Ultimately by matching the process flows and technical
parameters, these modules can be reused directly or partially modified for
environmental impact assessment of the same category of cotton textiles
throughout their life cycle. In this context, not only can data be checked, re-
viewed, but also modular units can be directly or partially modified to
quickly calculate the environmental impact results of the same type of cot-
ton textiles.
4.2. Allocation method of environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles
In actual production activities, there are often co-products produced,
forming a multi-output system. When it is necessary to evaluate the envi-
ronmental impact of the main and co-products separately, the first consid-
eration should be to avoid allocation (ISO 14040, 1997). There are two
methods to avoid allocation. One is to divide processes flows into multiple
sub-processes, and then collect the input and output data of each sub-
process. The second is the system expansion method, which is to find an al-
ternative production process equivalent to the target production process. If
allocation cannot be avoided, according to ISO (ISO, 2012), it needs to be
based on the physical relationships between products, such as the yield, vol-
ume, quality, and energy of the products. Finally, if a purely physical rela-
tionship cannot complete the allocation, it is necessary to utilize other
relationships of the product, such as economic value, for allocation.
In the existing literature on the environmental impact assessment of cot-
ton textiles, the allocation of carbon footprint values is rarely considered
(Feng et al., 2014). The allocation of environmental impact is usually con-
sidered at the raw material extraction stage and spinning stage. In the
raw material extraction stage, there are two kinds of product outputs: cot-
ton fiber and cottonseed. In the spinning stage, in addition to the main
product of cotton yarn, cotton comber noil is the main co-product and it
is mainly used as a raw material for open-end spinning for the manufacture
of coarser yarns (Muthu Kumar et al., 2022). Normally, the combing noil
rate of semi combed yarn is <12 %, the noil rate of ordinary combed yarn
is 12 %–18 %, and the noil rate of high-end combed yarn is 18 %–22 %
(Liu and Xiao, 2020). In terms of cotton textiles, there is no way to avoid al-
location by identifying a process with only produces lint, because lint and
cotton seed are made from the same series of process, and the same applies
to comber noil.
Specifically, during raw material extraction stage, Hedayati et al.
(2019) proposed the allocation ratio of environmental impact of lint and
cottonseed purely based on their market prices. They applied an average
cotton lint price from 2011 to 2014 of $2070/t and average cottonseed
price of $300/t, allocating approximately 86 % of the life cycle climate
change impact to lint. Similarly, Shen et al. (2010) and Avadí et al.
(2020) proposed their environmental impact allocation ratios based purely
on the market prices of lint and cottonseed, with lint accounting for 85 %
and 86 % respectively However, when allocating environmental impacts
7
Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659
between lint and cotton seed, some studies have considered not only the
price factor. For example, Jewell (2016) proposed the allocation proportion
of environmental impact of lint and cottonseed, in combination with the re-
spective yield and market price of lint and cottonseed. They established the
average ratio of cottonseed to cotton lint production in the United States
from 2010 to 2014, i.e.1.4. They also provided that the price of cottonseed
was $0.11 per pound and cotton lint was $0.80 per pound for the same time
period. Finally, the environmental impact allocation ratio of cotton lint and
cottonseed was calculated based on the yield and market price, i.e. 16 % for
cottonseed and 84 % for cotton lint. In addition, Li et al. (2014) proposed
that the price of noil is 40 % of the price of raw cotton, and assumed that
when 1.08 t of raw cotton is used for spinning, 0.08 t of noil will be pro-
duced. Combining the amount of noil and the price of noil, they calculated
the amount of environmental impact that noil needs to be allocated.
4.3. Carbon storage of cotton textiles
During growth, the cotton plant can absorb carbon dioxide and releases
oxygen through photosynthesis, which means that cotton has a certain
amount of carbon storage at this stage. There are two carbon storage
paths for cotton textiles. One path is to store carbon during the cotton grow-
ing stage by returning cotton straw to the field, and another path is to pro-
long the release of carbon contained in cotton fibers by extending the use
time of cotton clothing.
The carbon sequestration during the cotton planting stage involved in
soil carbon storage and cotton plant carbon storage. Soil carbon storage is
realized through the increase of soil organic carbon content during cotton
planting. The influencing factors of soil organic carbon include land-use
change type, management regime, and input of organic matter. IPCC
(2003) provided a detailed calculation method for soil organic carbon
change. Combined with the actual soil type, management regime and
input of organic matter, the amount of soil carbon sequestration per unit
cotton field can be calculated.
As for carbon sequestration in cotton plants, during the planting stage,
cotton synthesizes water and carbon dioxide into biomass through photo-
synthesis, which is achieved by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and
converting it into biomass within the cotton plant. Part of these biomass
is consumed by the respiration process of cotton itself, while the other
part is converted into cotton, cotton leaves, cotton stems, cotton roots,
etc. At the end of the cotton planting stage, i.e. cotton harvest stage, on
the one hand, residual cotton straw can be heated without oxygen (a pro-
cess known as low-temperature pyrolysis), ultimately converted into bio-
char (Lehmann, 2007). Biochar contain twofold higher carbon than
ordinary biomass. Conversion of biomass C to biochar C leads to storage
of about 50 % of the initial C compared to the low amounts retained after
burning (3 %) and biological decomposition (10–20 %) (Lehmann et al.,
2006). Huo et al. (2022) also found that the soil organic carbon was
33.28–36.43 % higher in the direct straw return treatment and
58.56–63.25 % higher in the charred straw return treatment than in the
unreturned soil through a seven-year experiment. Moreover, biochar
locks up rapidly decomposing carbon in plant biomass in a much more du-
rable form. Biochar is mainly composed of aromatic carbon and alkyl car-
bon, which has higher chemical stability, thermal stability and biological
stability than other carbon sources, and can be stored stably in soil for thou-
sands of years (Yang et al., 2020). Therefore, biochar returning to the field
can increase the amount of root and residue returning to the field, form
more soil organic carbon, reduce global warming potential, and slow
down climate warming (Han et al., 2022).
On the other hand, as cotton fiber is the raw material of cotton textiles,
the biomass contained in the cotton fiber remains in the cotton textile along
with the cotton fiber. In view of this, PAS 2050:2011 (BSI, 2011) states that
if some or all of the carbon removed will not be emitted to the atmosphere
within the 100-year assessment period, then this portion of carbon that is
not emitted to the atmosphere shall be treated as stored carbon. Carbon
storage can occur if biogenic carbon forms part or all of a product, such
as cotton fibers in cotton textiles. PAS 2050:2011 also provides the
S. Chen et al.
corresponding method for calculating carbon storage. Carbon storage credit
for a product is calculated from the total amount of carbon stored in the
product, by applying a weighting factor. Given that the weighting factor de-
pends on the duration of the storage, PAS 2050 provides two calculation
methods based on long- and short-time horizon. In cases where the full
amount of carbon is stored for a shorter period between 2 and 25 years
after formation of the product, followed by total release of the stored car-
bon, the weighting factor was calculated according to:
100  ð0:76  t0 Þ
FW ¼
100
where t 0 = the number of years between the formation of the product and
the single release of the emissions.
In cases where the full amount of carbon is stored for a longer period
within 100 years after formation of the product, the weighting factor was
calculated according to:
100
∑ xi  ð100  iÞ
i¼1
FW ¼
100
wherei = each year in which emissions occur.x = the proportion of total
emissions occurring in any year i.
The total amount of use phase emissions, released during the 100-year
quantification period would be multiplied by the weighting factor to reflect
the weighted average time these emissions are present in the atmosphere
during the 100-year quantification period.
4.4. Environmental impact assessment of cotton textiles at the end of life
The changes in consumer attitudes and consumption modes have short-
ened the life cycle of textiles and clothing, which, combined with the con-
tinuous expansion of the production capacity of the textile industry, has
generated large quantities of waste textiles and clothing. The disposal
methods for waste textiles and clothing usually include landfill and
recycling. Approximately 92 million tons of textile wastes are generated an-
nually around the world, 85 % of which ends up in landfills or incineration
(Sun et al., 2021). Landfill not only causes waste of resources but also has an
impact on the environment, while the recycling of waste cotton textiles can
realize resource recycling and has received wide attention. The impact of
recycling process on the environment has also attracted more concerns.
There are two key issues that need to be addressed in the existing stud-
ies on the environmental impacts assessment of recycled waste cotton tex-
tiles. The first is to calculate the environmental impacts of the cotton
textiles waste during recycling process. The second is to consider how to al-
locate the environmental impacts and credits generated by the recycling of
waste cotton textiles between the former life cycle (where produced waste
cotton textiles) and the subsequent life cycle (where used recycling mate-
rials made from waste cotton textiles). On the one hand, the environmental
impacts of the recycling process is usually calculated according to the con-
ventional life cycle assessment method, while the environmental credits
need to be calculated by the extended system boundary method
(Azapagica and Cliftb, 1999). Recycling waste cotton textiles can avoid
the environmental impacts during production of raw materials, as well as
the environmental impacts from landfill or incineration of waste cotton tex-
tiles. The avoided environmental impact is the environmental credits of the
recycled materials. The more recycled materials contended in the raw ma-
terials, the more environmental credits are gained from the recycling pro-
cess. In other words, when the raw materials are composed entirely of
recycled materials, the environmental credits reach their peaks. Therefore,
the selection of the replacement rate for recycled materials is crucial.
On the other hand, to reflect market realities, the burdens (i.e. negative
environmental impacts) and credits (positive environmental impacts) of
recycling material production shall be allocated between two life cycles,
i.e. the former life cycle which output recycled material and the subsequent
life cycle which input recycled material. There are three allocation methods
8
Science of the Total Environment 883 (2023) 163659
in the existing literature research. One approach allocates all the environ-
mental credits of renewable raw materials directly to the former life cycle
of cotton textiles, so that products generate renewable waste have higher
environmental credits (Luo et al., 2022). The second method considers
that renewable raw materials have no negative impact on the environment
and allocates all the environmental credits of renewable raw materials to
the subsequent life cycle of cotton textiles, so that products using renewable
raw materials have higher environmental credits (Fidan et al., 2021). How-
ever, when both methods are used simultaneously, it is inevitably to lead to
double counting of the environmental benefits of recycling waste cotton
textiles, so it is necessary to determine an allocating ratio to share the envi-
ronmental credits between the two life cycles (Zampori and Pant, 2019). In
view of this, the European Union Product Environmental Footprint Guide
(Zampori and Pant, 2019) proposes a set of methods to calculate the
recycling environmental footprint based on the third method, which stipu-
lates that the sharing coefficient of environmental credits between recycled
material providers and users should be in the range of 0.2 ≤ 0.8. The refer-
ence values of the apportionment coefficients of some common materials
(such as PET, aramid, glass fiber, etc.) are also given.
5. Conclusion
This study presents a systematic literature review and collates data on
the environmental impacts based on LCA, carbon footprint, and water foot-
print, which occur throughout the life cycle of cotton textiles. The collated
data will be useful for researchers who need LCI data on greenhouse gas
emissions, energy and water use. In addition, based on the results extracted
from the existing literature, four key issues concerning the environmental
impact assessment of cotton clothing are identified and further discussed.
Since the water consumption of cotton is largely determined by the geo-
graphical location and local climate conditions, when comparing the
water consumption of organic cotton and conventional cotton, it is impor-
tant to ensure that they are planted in the same geographical location. Be-
sides, the environmental impact from the production of organic fertilizers
and the environmental impact of organic fertilizer application during or-
ganic cotton planting should be consideration into environmental impacts
assessment of organic cotton.
The advantages of the modular method are the flexibility and efficiency
of the assessment process, as well as the repeatability and comparability of
the assessment results. When a process produces multiple value outputs,
different products need to share the environmental impact of the process.
Cotton clothing involves two main life cycle stages pertaining to allocation:
the cotton fiber extraction stage and the yarn production stage, the alloca-
tion method based on economic relation is mostly chosen. There are two
carbon storage paths during the production of cotton textiles: One is to
make carbon elements stably stored in soil by carbonizing cotton stalks
and returning them to the field. The second carbon storage method depends
on the service life of the clothing. The environmental benefits of the
recycling cycle of waste textiles and clothing can be calculated by the ex-
tended system boundary method. The replacement rate and quality of the
recycled raw materials directly affect the environmental net benefits of
the recycling cycle.
In the future, the allocation method, carbon storage model and impact
calculation model of the recycling stage can be incorporated into the mod-
ular accounting method to form a systematic parametric accounting model.
When assessing environment impact of cotton clothing, the corresponding
modules can be directly called to provide convenience and accuracy of
the impact accounting. However, although it is promising to apply the mod-
ular method in modeling, evaluation, and scenario analysis, a prerequisite
for its widespread application is the completion of process unit databases,
which remains an arduous task to be accomplished continuously. In this re-
gard, it is suggested that before engaging in first-hand data collection, the
process flows of products should be carefully sorted out, and the modules
decomposed on this basis should be as specific as possible to ensure the ac-
curacy and traceability of data. The diversity of cotton textiles categories
and the complexity of the processes and technologies will inevitably lead
S. Chen et al.
to tens of thousands of modules being involved. In views of this, some
emerging technologies, such as blockchain technology, can be integrated
into future practice. Specifically, in the form of blockchain, data blocks
are combined into specific databases in the order of cotton textile produc-
tion to achieve transparency and shareability of accounting modules.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Shuang Chen: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft. Lisha Zhu:
Review & editing. Lirong Sun: Review & editing. Qianwen Huang: Data
Curation. Ying Zhang: Review & editing. Xin Li: Review & editing.
Xiangyu Ye: Review & editing. Yi Li: Review & editing. Laili Wang: Over-
all framework of the study, review & editing.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial inter-
ests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the
work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to General Project of Humanities and Social
Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education of China (21YJCZH160),
Soft Science Research Project of Zhejiang Provincial Innovation Center
of Advanced Textile Technology (ZX2022002R), Science Foundation of
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (ZSTU) under Grant (22202009-Y), Eyas
Program Incubation Project of Zhejiang Provincial Administration for
Market Regulation (No. CY2022003) and Ouhai District Science and
Technology Plan (G20210201) for providing funding supports to this
research.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163659.
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