Ecological Footprint and Water Analysis of Cotton, Hemp and Polyester

The application of the Ecological Footprint to assess the environmental burden of the five textiles highlights interesting factors in the cultivation and fabric production processes represented in twelve case studies.

It shows that polyester production is the most energy intensive, requiring approximately ten times more energy than ‘Organic Cotton–Punjab’, which consumes the least energy. Consequently, polyester emits the greatest quantity of CO2 emissions but in this case it is only four times that of ‘Organic Cotton–USA’, the smallest emitter of CO2 emissions. However, the overall best performer in the Ecological Footprint context is ‘Traditional Organic Hemp–UK’ (1.46 gha/tonne of spun fibre), two times better than the worst performer ‘Cotton–Punjab’ (3.57 gha/tonne of spun fibre). In terms of water consumption, cotton requires 9,758 kg of water per kg, while hemp requires between 2,401 and 3,401 kg of water per kg.