A traceability platform for monitoring environmental and social sustainability in the textile and clothing value chain: towards a digital passport for textiles and clothing

Abstract

Textile and clothing is one of the most important industrial sectors, not only due to the significant number of jobs generated, but also because it addresses one of the people’s fundamental needs (clothing). It is, however, a sector with a huge global environmental impact, and also an important negative social impact, especially in developing countries. Sustainability in the textile and clothing value chain is a known issue, concerning both environmental and economic-social facets of sustainability. One way to improve sustainability in this sector is by measuring and monitoring the environmental, economic and social impacts of activities along the value chain and, ultimately, computing an environmental and circular score for each batch of textile and clothing product, and an economic and social score for each involved company, reflected in their products. The consumer will then have the opportunity and responsibility for selecting products with the least negative environmental, economic and social impact. This article aims to propose a decentralized traceability platform for the textile and clothing value chain, based on blockchain technology, for tracing textile product batches and activities, along the value chain, classifying them with a score, which measures their environmental and social impact. The environmental, economic and social impact scores are based on a set of proposed indicators. The results are assessed through two test scenarios, namely a face towel (home textile) and a T-shirt (clothing).