From waste to wardrobe A comparative life cycle assessment on prolonging garment lifetime through repair and online second-hand
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Industrial ecology (MPTSE), MSc
Publicerad
2023
Författare
Collin Aronsson, Klara
Jagefeldt, Johanna
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
The clothing industry, encompassing all its activities from production to end-of-life, is
a major contributor to environmental damage. The global production and consumption
of clothes have roughly doubled in the past 15 years and fast fashion, with short garment
lifecycles, intensifies the resource demand and the ensuing emissions. As a response, a shift
from the traditional linear model of take-make-dispose to circularity can be seen through
clothing companies working with circular business models (CBMs) or implementing circular
strategies. Understanding the environmental impact of these circular initiatives is crucial
for reducing the overall environmental footprint of clothing.
The aim of the thesis was to assess the environmental impact of prolonging a pair of pant’s
lifetime through two CBMs based on circular strategies or business models represented on
the Swedish market and comparing it to the linear model. This was done by a mapping
of Swedish clothing companies to select two either circular strategies or CBMS to serve
as the foundation for the proposed models. Two general CBMs, one based on repair and
one on an online second-hand (OSH) platform, were created, derived from information
from interviews and literature. The environmental impact of the models was evaluated by
conducting a life cycle assessment, and a sensitivity analysis was performed to assess the
robustness of the results.
The study found that companies are embracing circularity, either through CBMs or by
implementing circular strategies such as physical and online second-hand, repair, exchange,
and rental services. It was also shown that by extending a pair of pants’ lifetime through
CBMs based on repair or OSH, the environmental impact per garment lifetime is reduced
compared to the linear model. It was found that repair resulted in the lowest impact due
to the significant increase in the number of enabled uses and the relatively small impact
from the repairing process, despite a large impact from additional consumer car transports.
OSH was also found to be preferable to the linear model. The additional processes required
by OSH, i.e. truck transports and sorting and managing of the pants had a relatively low
environmental impact and the CBM enabled more uses of the pants than the linear model
achieved. However, OSH enabled fewer uses compared to repair, which made it fall between
the linear model and repair in terms of overall impact. Lastly, it was also found that the
potential of both repair and OSH is mainly dependent on consumers’ transportation modes
and distances, and the actual number of achieved uses.
The study shows the importance for consumers to fully utilize purchased garments and to
consider repairing them instead of buying new ones when they are worn out. When consid-
ering selling or donating their clothes, the study also shows the importance of only doing
so if the garments are undamaged and of good quality to avoid additional transportation
and waste creation that could ensue if the receiving company should deem the clothes unfit
for resale. This, as general consumer behavior, would result in an overall reduction in the
demand for the production of new clothing. Furthermore, the study shows that the con-
sumers’ choice of transportation mode and ability to combine errands is of big importance
to the overall efficiency and impact of the CBM.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Circular economy , circular business model , circular strategies repair , second-hand , environmental impact , textile industry , fast fashion , clothing