IWTO wool life cycle analysis project thinks: wool is really green fiber
Release time:
Aug 03,2018
At the 81st IWTO conference held in New York, USA, Dr. Paul Swan, an Australian wool development company, published the stage results of the feasibility study on wool life cycle. Although wool is a na
At the 81st IWTO conference held in New York, USA, Dr. Paul Swan, an Australian wool development company, published the stage results of the feasibility study on wool life cycle.
Although wool is a natural fiber, the environmental performance of wool is not necessarily good in the reports published by some organizations. Take the rating system of mad-by as an example, which mainly evaluates parameters such as greenhouse gas emission, ecological toxicity, human toxicity, energy consumption, water resource input and land use efficiency. As wool is considered to perform poorly on a number of parameters, such as scouring emissions, land occupation and greenhouse gases, the mad-by organization ranks wool as a poor environmental performance grade 5 (level 1 is best). In order to protect the interests of wool industry, the IWTO commissioned the Australian wool development company (AWI) to carry out the wool life cycle analysis project, aiming to use scientific and objective data to prove that wool has good environmental performance.
The wool life cycle assessment review working group mainly analyzed and compared the life cycle assessment projects that have been carried out, found their shortcomings and proposed targeted recommendations. After a year of hard work, we have achieved periodic results. The working group found that 12 wool life cycle analyses have been completed around the world, with five assessments for apparel wool, six for carpet and soundproof materials and one for all wool products. Of these, 6 assessments extend to the entire wool use process, including pasture, scouring, sliver, yarn, product, use and waste stages, and 3 assessments have been published.
Dr. Paul Swan believes that it is unwise for IWTO to reinvest to carry out wool life cycle assessment, and should make use of existing data as much as possible, and integrate and improve evaluation methods and results. Start with technical problems and find the defects of existing data. For the development of wool life cycle analysis in the next stage, Dr. Paul Swan believed that a set of clear strategies should be developed for communication between organizers and participants in the project to guide the project. Life cycle assessment is only one part of a larger strategy, which needs to be accompanied by a marketing strategy. Through this project, we will have a deeper understanding and a more objective evaluation of the environmental impact of wool industry. For now, wool is a green fiber relative to other fibers, both in the process of wearing it and in its recycling.
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