Energy and carbon footprint reduction during textile-based product design and manufacturing

Abstract

Due to concerns over non-renewable energy consumption and associated emissions, industry has sought methods and technologies to support energy efficiency practices and use of alternative energy during product manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. Efforts have been undertaken to more precisely calculate environmental metrics, such as energy consumption and carbon footprint, to support broader sustainable design activities. The work reported endeavours to integrate sustainability principles into the design of products, manufacturing processes, and relevant supply chain networks to assist decision makers. Two backpacks are evaluated to examine the influence of design choices on energy consumption and carbon footprint. The study system boundary includes raw material extraction, materials processing, manufacturing operations, and transportation for each component. The results show that manufacturing processes dominate transportation-related impacts. The work appears to be the first to apply a comprehensive process-based approach to estimate cradle-to-gate energy consumption and carbon footprint for textile-based product design variants.