It's been about a year and a half since the World Apparel & Footwear Life Cycle Assessment Database (WALDB) was launched. How do you personally see the progress so far?
Rainer Zah: Since we launched WALDB the interest in environmental footprinting in the apparel industry is strongly growing. Some important players joined the initiative this year like SAC (Sustainable Apparel Coalition) and LVMH. This allows us to develop even more data for the members.
What has been the response of industry so far? After all it is industry that needs to rise to the occasion. What do you think remain teh weak points in your initiative (if you think there are any at all)?
Rainer Zah: We are in contact with most of the leading apparel brands. The brands which already calculated life cycle assessments (LCAs) are very interested in WALDB as they know how difficult and resource-consuming it is, when you have to find proxies for missing data, e.g. for spinning or for cotton cultivation. A weak point is definitely that the database is currently only accessible for users with LCA-experience. Therefore, we started the development of an online footprinting tool, that allows an easy access of the WALDB-database.
Given what you had in mind while launching the tool, how much do you think ground realities have changed since then? Do you feel the need for a course correction?
Rainer Zah: After intense discussions with SAC and BCI (Better Cotton Initiative), we have learned that the modelling of cotton is much more complex than originally thought. We are now using spatial data on water scarcity, land cover and yield distribution for a detailed bottom-up modelling of regional averages. We will publish this autumn spatially-modelled country average footprint data for the 12 most important cotton-producing countries.
Are you constantly working on both the primary data that you had as well as datasets that have been developed/created since the launch of WALDB? How did you narrow down on the metrics and how long did that take?
Rainer Zah: We have a research team that is constantly analysing primary data from our members and harmonising it with literature data and other database to remove any methodological artefacts. A key goal for us is, that all data in the WALDB are directly comparable, as our members want to compare the environmental performance of their products with benchmark fabrics and they want to understand the reason for potential differences.
Could you please elaborate on the datasets related to apparel that you have been working with?
Rainer Zah: We try to include the most relevant datasets specific for the apparel footwear industry. This starts with materials sourcing (leather, cotton, wool, cashmere, viscose, lyocell, synthetic fibres), processing (ginning, spinning, weaving knitting, dyeing, tanning), manufacturing, use phase and even the different recycling processes for garments.
Datasets are invariably about what is known to mankind/industry. How do you factor in the unknown, as in new issues or problems or situations that crop up?
Rainer Zah: Good question! Footprint data is always an approximation of current knowhow and has its limitations. As we transparently document our datasets,;they are always accessible for review and improvement. Before publication, all our dataset pass a review by our scientific advisory board.
More than 300 datasets are to be released by the end of the project. When does the project officially end? Would the datasets be available to one and all?
Rainer Zah: The current WALDB project will end in 2018 with the third and final data release. As the interest is high, we have already started the planning of a phase-2 where we will keep the data updated and where we will add further data. In general, the WALDB data are foreseen for public release three years after the internal release.
Based on how the WALDB has worked so far, which segment in the apparel supply chain do you think is the weakest link (as in most environmentally destructive)?
Rainer Zah: In my experience, processes with a close interaction with nature exhibit the highest environmental impacts. Examples are intensive cotton cultivation in water scarce-regions or leather tanning without waste-water treatment. If energy-intense processes are taking place in regions with dirty electricity production, this could also lead to high environmental impacts that are not directly visible. An example is a spinning mill powered by coal-based electricity.
One of the biggest groups to join your initiative was the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) in October 2016. Are you working on anything specific with SAC?
Rainer Zah: First of all, the SAC joining our initiative was very important for establishing WALDB as the world standard for footprint calculations in the apparel sector. We are basically helping the SAC to improve the quality of their natural and man-made fiber data and also to complete data gaps in the Higg Index. In the mid-term, all SAC members will profit from the access to the WALDB database.
How many Indian companies / brands have joined this initiative? How do you think the WALDB can help Indian companies? Could you elaborate?
Rainer Zah: In a joint project together with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Institute of Forestry and Environmental Sciences (IFESCU, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh) we are currently collecting primary data in India and Bangladesh on the cultivation of cotton, kenaf, jute and flex; on the production of silk; and on regional datasets for spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing and finishing garments. The next release of the WALDB will therefore be strongly focused on the Indian textiles sector and it would be great to start closer collaborations with the Indian apparel industry.
