The fashion industry is also a major consumer of freshwater. A huge quantity of freshwater is used for our clothes’ dyeing and finishing processes. Also, cotton requires a significant amount of water to grow but is often cultivated in warm and dry areas, necessitating even more irrigation water.
The water needed to produce a single product is highly dependent on various factors, including the type of production processes and machinery used and whether the factories are recycling their industrial water. Additionally, the location of each stage of production can greatly impact water usage, as water stress and availability can vary significantly between regions.
Using industry averages (secondary data) to determine the water usage of individual production processes is not a reliable approach, just as it is not for calculating energy consumption. A professional life cycle analysis (LCA) using data from the actual facilities and supply chain (primary data) is necessary to assess water usage. Unfortunately, this can be an unaffordable undertaking for many organizations.
SANE recognizes the importance of water consumption in the production of materials and will include it among its requirements as soon as reliable data for specific production processes is available at a reasonable cost on a global scale.