Green And Environmental Protection: Quantitative Analysis Of Carbon Footprint Of Cotton Textiles

It was learned from the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences that Wang Zhanbiao's research team quantitatively analyzed children's clothing, knitwear, work clothes The carbon emissions of cotton textiles such as T-shirts and training clothes in the whole stage of "from seed to garment", namely, carbon footprint, and the corresponding specific "carbon reduction" strategies are proposed, which provide important ideas and clues for the sustainable development of China's cotton textile and garment industry, and also provide a scientific basis for the formulation of emission reduction strategies for the global cotton textile industry. Relevant research results have recently been published in the international journal of environmental science Resources, Protection and Recycling.

Previous studies showed that the life cycle carbon emissions of the global textile industry were second only to the oil and gas industry, and even exceeded the total carbon emissions of international aviation and shipping. China is one of the largest cotton producing and processing countries in the world, accounting for 32% of the world's cotton consumption, and more than 1/3 of the world's textile and clothing exports. Data shows that China's textile and clothing industry can emit about 230 million tons of carbon dioxide every year. Therefore, driven by the "double carbon" strategy, textile and clothing enterprises actively manage carbon emissions in the whole value chain, which has become the industry trend.

Carbon footprint is an indicator used to measure the carbon dioxide emissions directly or indirectly caused by a product within a certain period of time. Wang Zhanbiao believes that quantitative analysis of the carbon footprint of cotton textile and clothing industry "from seed to clothing" is of great significance to promote the green transformation of China's textile industry. Therefore, the research team obtained large-scale research data based on the whole life cycle from cotton planting, ginning, spinning, fabric manufacturing, dyeing to garment manufacturing, and conducted a comprehensive empirical analysis of China's textile industry chain in combination with the life cycle assessment method. The results show that in the whole life cycle of cotton textiles, cotton production, spinning and manufacturing stages are the main carbon emission sources, accounting for 22.54%, 19.91% and 44.70% of the total carbon emissions, respectively.

The study found that the carbon footprint of cotton textiles in the whole life cycle could be reduced by 52.48%, 30.43%, 35.95% and 62.40% respectively through four alternative scenarios, including clean energy, optimizing factory scale, using organic cotton and strengthening recycling. Therefore, the study suggests reducing carbon emissions through measures such as reducing energy consumption, promoting technological innovation and strengthening textile recycling to promote the transformation of the clothing industry to sustainable development.