Unspun’s Phase 2 LCA Makes the Case for 3D Weaving
New technologies require fresh methods of measuring impact.
Unspun commissioned Green Story, a supply chain visibility analysis platform, to conduct a phase 2 life cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify and compare the environmental impacts of Vega, Unspun’s first-of-its-kind 3D weaving technology, against conventional cut, make and trim (CMT) production.
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The B Corp robotics and digital apparel company introduced Vega last year as a zero-inventory, onshored, circular and automated supply-chain solution for woven products. With Vega, Unspun reports that it can make a pair of chinos or other woven pants in under 10 minutes while essentially eliminating fabric scrap waste from the production process.
“As a company that’s focused on helping businesses reduce unsold goods, we knew we wanted to do our LCA differently; most LCA’s don’t take into account that a product might not sell and could end up in a landfill instead of a consumer’s closet,” Beth Esponnette, Unspun’s co-founder, told Rivet. “For our LCA, we assumed a 30 percent unsold inventory rate. We felt that conducting an LCA which takes excess inventory into account is essential if we want to provide a holistic representation of the impact of our clothing.”
The phase 2 LCA was conducted on two products: a pant made with 100-percent virgin cotton cultivated in the U.S. and a second made with 100-percent polyester. Unspun used 3D weavings, and the benchmark uses a regular air jet weaving and cut-and-sew process, the Oakland, Cali.-based company said.
It builds on Unspun’s phase 1 analysis in which an on-demand production model was not considered. For phase 2, the company said base-lined products “factor in that the product only has a 70 percent sell-through rate.” Therefore, 30 percent of the batch ends up as unsold inventory.
The LCA found that the cotton pant made on-demand produced 53 percent less carbon emissions than a product with a 70 percent sell-through rate. It also used 49 percent less energy and 39 percent less water.
The polyester pant made on-demand generated 52 percent less carbon emissions, used 37 percent less energy and 31 percent less water against the garment with a 70 percent sell-through rate.
The main reason why 3D woven pant exhibit savings in all three categories is due to on-demand production, preventing deadstock inventory and avoiding excessive input consumption, the LCA found.
In the case of 3D weaving, the fabric waste generated during cut-and-sew was “considerably eliminated” as the pant is directly woven from the yarn with nearly 99 percent efficiency. By contrast, 14 percent of the fabric is lost during the cut-and-sew process for the pant made using air jet or synthetic weaving.
“Reductions realized by 3D woven pants in phase two over phase one of the project have increased by 29 percent and 23 percent for cotton and polyester pants, respectively,” Unpsun said. “This demonstrates the benefits of on-demand production quite clearly.”
The impact of Vega without the on-demand production model saw the 100 percent cotton pant made in bulk utilize 24 percent fewer carbon emissions, 25 percent less energy and 1.4 percent less water. Meanwhile, the 100-percent polyester pants made in bulk produced 19 percent less emissions, 18 percent less energy and 2.6 percent less water.
Unspun also conducted a cradle-to-customer analysis to “determine if there would be cost savings for local production compared to overseas production.” To its surprise, the LCA found no significant impact regarding the distance between the production site and the customer; the difference in emissions between shipping to a customer 62 miles away and a customer 4,000-plus miles away showed a difference of just 1 percent in carbon emissions per pair of pants.
“The project was a unique comparison of on-demand manufacturing from Unspun’s 3D unique weaving processes versus a conventional process for making a similar item,” Dr. Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, the conductor of the LCA, said. “What was really ground-breaking was that the cradle to gate study looked at factors such as inventory waste and overproduction to give a unique look at the impact of on-demand manufacturing models. We used primary data from Unspun and third-party-reviewed literature to ensure the results are as credible as can be.”
