Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs): Taking the Temperature of an Industry – Part 2

Yesterday, I posted a brief summary of what LCAs are and how they are created. Today, I wanted to follow up with some thoughts on the value of LCAs and their role as part of a larger sustainability strategy. As I mentioned in my previous post, if you’re interested in looking at Cotton Incorporated’s LCA on cotton, as well as a number of webinars on LCAs (and other sustainability topics), you should check out our updated CottonToday website.

LCAs help industries evaluate the entire life cycle – from growth to production to consumer use to disposal – of a given product, and best evaluate where the majority of environmental impact occurs. For cotton, we’ve learned from an LCA conducted by Cotton Incorporated that some of the most environmentally impactful part of the cotton life cycle is the energy use from textile manufacturing and of laundry on the consumer end. We also learned, however, that from a cotton growing perspective, the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change is nitrogen-based fertilizer production and use. This information guides the industry towards solutions that target the biggest levers and will produce the biggest improvement through time.  

For an example of turning a LCA into an actionable plan for sustainability improvement, look at the U.S. cotton industry. The U.S. cotton industry utilized the global cotton LCA to help evaluate the environmental impact of the cotton production and create strategies for reducing the environmental impacts of cotton. Following this assessment, they developed the 10-year sustainability goals for the U.S. cotton industry. To help meet these goals, the industry launched the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol to systematically track improvements in these sustainability metrics and to provide growers with tools that will help them grow cotton more sustainably.  

For brand sustainability experts, sourcing employees or just environmentally conscious consumers, what does an LCA mean? The answer is two-fold. First, the investment in an LCA can be an important validator – it shows that an industry has taken the time and effort to collect scientifically valid and verified information – it can be the first step in the process. The second part of the answer, however, is to make sure that the industry has a strategy and programs supporting improvements in sustainability. As I wrote earlier – the LCA is a diagnostic tool. It lets us know what levers to push and where to focus our efforts. After that, however, the industry needs to take real action to address environmental impact- which is the hard part.

The science of climate change is complex – and like any true science, it evolves and changes as we gather more information. LCAs are an important part of that information-gathering process. As an industry, there is a real need to increase sustainability and LCA literacy. Without proper training and understanding, the industry is much less likely to pick the best interventions and create strategies that have the ultimate goal of improving the environment and perhaps even lower the earth’s temperature. It’s also important that we avoid going beyond LCAs’ stated purpose and stretch the science far past its breaking point. If we do that, the results could be worse for the environment than doing nothing.

For our most recent LCA on cotton as well as additional sustainability research, you should definitely visit our revamped CottonToday website. We also have an example of a comparative LCA, we recently conducted between cottonseed oil and other frying oils.

By: Dr. Jesse Daystar – Vice President, Chief Sustainability Officer, Cotton Incorporated