Impact Transparency
The fashion industry, and our clothing consumption, is breaking our planet. Globalised supply chains exploit people and planet in countries with insufficient regulation, to offer us new outfits for less than a lunch. The low price we've become used to comes at a cost: broken labourers, polluted ecosystems, mountains of trash and climate change.
We calculate and share the lifecycle impact of our garments, to confront us with the fact that garments don't just cost our bank account, they cost our planet too.
Production impact
The production impact of a garment includes the creation of the raw material, its refinement into a yarn, weaving or knitting into fabrics, wet processes to dye and treat the yarn and fabrics, cutting, sewing, washing and packing - along with the transports in-between and to our warehouse. This impact cannot be undone. That's why it's paramount for us to create garments with minimal impact and maximum longevity - and for you to choose wisely, and buy what you need, will will use often, and for a long time. We share the production impact on every garment page and in your impact receipt, upon ordering.
Distribution impact
Distribution impact depends on which packaging you choose, how and how far the garment is shipped to get to you. Returns and exchanges add more transports. All our European standard shipping methods are land-based, a large share of last-mile legs are by electric cars or bicycles. Transports to the rest of the world are air-freight, with significantly higher impact. Transport to a collection point might have a lower impact than home delivery, but it depends on how you get to your pickup point, or how the courier gets to your door.
Find impact of our packaging and distribution alternatives in the checkout, before placing your order.
Use phase impact
A garment's use phase impact comes from washing and drying and depends on how often - and how - a garment is washed and dried, how efficient your white-goods are, how full you load a machine and what energy sources you have (renewable, coal or gas). Washing at higher temperatures and tumbling requires far more energy than washing cold and line drying. The latter also degrades a garment significantly faster, requiring new garment production to replace it. You can save time, money and impact by choosing renewable energy, washing carefully and in turn keeping your garments in use longer.
End of life impact
Most garments are thrown in the trash and incinerated. Less than 30% of garments collected are actually recycled, and less than 1% become new garments. Donated garments often end up in developing countries for landfill or incineration, pushing the problem to already frail ecosystems and infrastructures. Keep your garments in use, repair them, sell or give them to someone you know will use them. We offer free repairs in our stores and send you repair kits for local repairs. Our Revival Program rewards you for sending back unwanted ASKET garments, so we can resell or recycle them for you.
Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) Methodology
As with any impact calculation all our results are estimates subject to a high degree of uncertainty based on availability of data, impact calculation and allocation methodology and the scope of impact that we assume. We’ve chosen to define our scope as broad as possible and be as conservative as possible, making sure that we rather overstate than understate our impact. All numbers are subject to change as we continue to refine our methodology and supplement secondary data with primary data.
We've partnered with Vaayu to process and calculate our lifecycle impact assessments. Vaayu’s environmental footprint estimates for products are calculated within the framework of a cradle-to-grave lifecycle assessment (LCA) approach based general standards for LCA (ISO 14040 and 14044) and guided by more specific standards for different impact areas where relevant (for Climate Impact,ISO 14067; for Water Scarcity, the AWARE method; for Primary Energy Usage, the CED method).
Results for Climate Impact are expressed in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg/CO2e), which also accounts for other relevant greenhouse gasses such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Vaayu uses the conversion factors from IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report to translate the different warming potentials and atmospheric lifespans of these greenhouse gases to CO2e for ease of understanding.
Product footprint estimates calculated by Vaayu incorporate all relevant life cycle stages within the boundary of the product system under review, including raw material extraction & processing, material production, wet processing, product assembly, distribution and deliveries (including primary and secondary packaging), use phase, and end of life. ASKET has chosen to exclude customer distribution, e-commerce packaging, use phase and end of life footprint estimates from the product footprints reported on product pages and aims to instead showcase these impacts with scenario discriptions on its care and impact pages.
Vaayu’s environmental footprint estimates rely on a combination of primary data received from thebrand partner (such as supplier-specific data from within the ASKET’s value chain) and secondary data(including data from published and peer-reviewed literature, established emission factors, and other high-quality representative data). Calculations by Vaayu and its modeling engine prioritize primary data in allcases when available.
For more information on the latest methodology used, please review the methodology document linked below.