90 Percent of Apparel’s Environmental Impact Happens Before It’s Assembled: Glimpact Report

90 Percent of Apparel’s Environmental Impact Happens Before It’s Assembled: Glimpact Report

Dil Bar Irshad | April 23, 2025 | 08:16 PM IST | Breaking News, Featured by VoM, World | Follow on Google News

90 Percent of Apparel’s Environmental Impact Happens Before It’s Assembled: Glimpact Report

NEW YORK, NY – 8am EST, April 23, 2025 – Glimpact, the first platform for analyzing the overall environmental impact of products and organizations, today released a new study assessing the true ecological cost of apparel from leading brands, including Patagonia, Reformation, H&M, Ralph Lauren, and Alo Yoga. The findings challenge conventional assumptions about sustainability in fashion, showing that carbon emissions account for just 23% of a typical product’s environmental footprint.

Using the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method, a science-based approach adopted by the European Union to standardize environmental assessments, Glimpact evaluated more than 100 apparel items across 16 environmental impact categories. These include particulate pollution, fossil resource depletion, and water use, which together make up over 75% of an apparel product’s total footprint.

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Among the study’s most striking product-level findings:

• Reformation’s Tessa Hoodie, made from 100% organic cotton, had the highest impact of the women’s sweatshirts tested. It surpassed Alo Yoga’s Accolade Hoodie (which makes no sustainability claims) and Patagonia’s Fitz Roy Icon Uprisal Hoody, made entirely from recycled materials.
• Packaging and distribution, frequent focal points in ESG strategies, account for less than 7% of total product impact on average.
• Raw materials and manufacturing contribute more than 90% of a product’s impact, making them the most effective targets for sustainability interventions.

The study highlights the nuance behind material choices. For example, simply changing the source of cotton used in Reformation’s hoodie could reduce its footprint by up to 40%. Similarly, changing dyeing processes, a major impact hotspot, could shrink Patagonia’s hoodie footprint by over 10%.

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Glimpact also analyzed men’s pants across brands. Ralph Lauren’s Straight Fit Linen-Cotton Pant showed a smaller environmental footprint than Patagonia’s jeans and H&M’s Slim Fit Chinos, due to the lower-impact properties of linen and the brand’s use of low-impact dyeing.

“Carbon is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Christophe Girardier, CEO of  Glimpact, “Brands are pouring millions into recycled packaging and carbon offsets while ignoring the fact that 90% of their impact is baked in before a single product is even sewn. If we don’t start measuring what really matters, raw material origin, dyeing, and fiber choices, we’re not solving the climate crisis, we’re greenwashing it.”

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The findings come at a critical time as the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) moves to enforce PEF-based product assessments. These measures could influence future trade policies and environmental labeling standards.

Glimpact, a sustainability venture with operations in New York, France and Belgium, is the first digital platform enabling the assessment of the overall environmental impact of products and organizations based on the new scientific doctrine of the EU. It provides access to the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology, developed by the European scientific community and adopted by the EU in 2021. Glimpact allows all stakeholders to not only measure the environmental footprint of their products or organizations but more importantly, to identify effective actions to reduce it.

The French government has selected Glimpact as the coordinator for one of the methods considered in the government experiment on environmental labeling of food and textile products. The company is a member of the technical committee assisting the Ministry of Ecological Transition in defining the modalities of environmental labeling mandated by the Climate and Resilience Law. Glimpact has been chosen by the European Commission, following a global tender, to implement legislation for the battery and photovoltaic solar panel sectors. This legislation will require these actors to display the environmental footprint of their products measured using the PEF methodology. 

Glimpact already boasts solid expertise and experience with major players in the industry and distribution, including Lacoste, Decathlon, Mars, Gant, Carrefour, Puratos, Manutan, Spadel, Adeo, Lyreco, Pimkie, Chantelle, Celio, Aigle, Galler, and Bewital. 

Dil Bar Irshad

Dil Bar Irshad is a seasoned journalist, hails from Jammu Kashmir's Doda, covers political, social, business stories, index stories.