Life cycle assessment of cotton yarns for IKEA

Abstract: Cotton is one of the leading fibers in the textile industry due to its superior mechanical qualities. It accounts for high environmental impacts, especially water consumption and scarcity. Since cotton is a significant raw material for IKEA, it had set a target to source from only sustainable sources such as from the Better Cotton Initiative, and recycled cotton. At the same time, IKEA also has a commitment to transition to a circular business, which includes recycling. This comparative and accounting Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analyzes virgin (two types - conventional cotton and Better Cotton) yarns, and mixed (virgin plus recycled) cotton yarns from some of the top supplier countries of the company, on a cradle-to-gate perspective. Water quantity and quality impacts are analyzed together with climate change. The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) shows that there is a proportional reduction in impacts of the mixed yarns as recycled cotton percentage is increased, since the impacts of recycled yarns are much lower than virgin yarns. In virgin conventional yarns, the main stages that contributed the most to the impacts were cotton cultivation and spinning. Irrigation used in cotton cultivation accounted for the most impacts in water availability. For water quality, the impacts were mostly coming from electricity use and direct field emissions from cotton cultivation. In addition, this study demonstrated that there were high differences between the impacts in the countries studied. The results also suggested that there were water savings by using Better Cotton compared to conventional cotton yarns.