Towards circular textiles: Life cycle assessment of homewear produced from regenerative cotton and post-industrial waste versus conventional cotton

Abstract

The textile industry is a major contributor to global and local environmental impacts, particularly due to high water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and land use. These impacts are driven by several factors, most notably cotton cultivation and energy-intensive processes such as spinning and dyeing. To address these sustainability challenges, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating products and processes in the textile sector. In this study, LCA is applied to assess the environmental performance of a homewear set produced from a yarn blend consisting of 30 % recycled post-industrial cellulosic waste and 70 % virgin cotton sourced from regenerative agriculture. A comparative analysis was conducted with a similar homewear set composed entirely of conventional cotton, globally sourced and dyed using traditional methods, to assess the potential benefits of using more sustainable materials. The functional unit (FU) is defined as one medium-sized homewear set, consisting of a sweatshirt and pants. The life cycle inventory was primarily based on primary data gathered directly from the manufacturer's supply chain, complemented with secondary data from the literature and recognized databases where necessary. Overall, primary data covered approximately 90 % of the product system. Environmental impacts were assessed using the ReCiPe 2016 (v1.03) method at the midpoint level under the egalitarian perspective, focusing on seven impact categories relevant to the textile sector. Results show that cotton cultivation is the most impactful life cycle stage, contributing 32.0 % to climate change, 92.5 % to water consumption, and 33.9 % to land use. Other significant contributors include knit finishing processes (24.1 % of climate change impact) and spinning (18.9 % of climate change). The homewear set incorporating recycled and regenerative materials demonstrated a 53.9 % lower climate change impact compared to the conventional alternative, increasing to 81.5 % when carbon offsetting in the cotton cultivation stage was considered. Water consumption decreased substantially, from 4.66 m³/FU to 1.54 m³/FU. Despite these improvements, further efforts are needed to reduce fossil energy use and mitigate ecotoxicity. These findings highlight the potential of incorporating recycled content, regenerative agricultural practices, and renewable energy to reduce the environmental footprint of textile products while maintaining quality, thereby supporting sustainability goals and guiding future research and development in sustainable textile production.