EcoLogTex is a software tool being developed to help designers create more sustainable textile supply chains. It aims to [1] improve environmental and social responsibility in the textile industry, [2] provide consumers with transparent impact information, and [3] help companies manage increasing complexity from life cycle assessments. The tool will include modules to benchmark supply chain impacts, design sustainable supply chains, and report on product environmental impacts throughout the lifecycle. It uses optimization algorithms to explore alternative supply chain configurations and help decision makers efficiently evaluate tradeoffs between cost, time, and environmental impact.

1. DTI / Titolo principale della presentazione 1
1
EcoLogTex: a software tool
supporting the design of sustainable
supply chains for textiles
Andrea Emilio Rizzoli

2. EcoLogTex - ICT4S 2
Motivation
Costs
LCA study today needs
an expert
• Improve quality and Raising standards based on LCA
EU Ecolabel for Textiles,
environmental and EU Product Footprint Category Rules (PFCR),
French Environmental Labeling Project “Grenelle”
social responsibility; Product Carbon Footprint (PCF)
High Complexity ISO 14067 – Carbon Footprint of Products
• Provide consumers Product and Supply Chain
with accessible and Scientific
fact based approach
transparent
information
• Face future cost
internalisation of their
Information
carbon footprint. Costumers and
Organizations Time
• Manage the increased Traditional LCA tools are
complexity added by time consuming
LCA
Improvement
continuously improve
efficiency

3. EcoLogTex - ICT4S 3
EcoLogTex objectives
Ecologtex enables traceability of the value chain and assess all impacts of a products’ life cycle
Climate Change Human Health Resources

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EcoLogTex products
Continues improvement throughout fact
Benchmarker based analyses and anonymous
benchmarking
-> e.g. LCA studies done by Cotton Inc.
Evaluate supply chain and its resulting impact
for a specific desired product during design Environ
Supply Chain Designer phase
Cost Time
ment
- > design for environment
U.S. Cotton’s Footprint Reduction 1987, 1997 and 2007
Inform fact based on environmental impacts of
the production phase, the use phase and final
Reporter
disposal
-> Product traceability and impact assessment

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The benchmarker
• Quick and easy data entry in a user-friendly online questionnaire
– specific user data is complemented with background data
– e.g. average energy consumption values for known processes
• Cradle-to-gate self assessment
– calculate and compare the upstream LCI
– anonymised comparison with competitors
• Contribution assessment
– which factors weight more
• Use and share real LCI data
– beneficial information enrichment cycle

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Some general facts on the cotton impact for textiles
• Cotton is the dominant textile material,
accounting for approximately 43%, but
also in terms of impact shows the highest
share (EU27)
• Some key areas of eco-innovation
identified to reduce the environmental
impact include:
– Organic cotton, often at a very high %
of content,
– Cotton that is produced using less
pesticides (for example, BCI) and less
irrigation water
IMPRO study : Impacts of textile consumption in the EU 27, midpoint and endpoint indicators, fibre
production phase, broken down by fibre

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State of the Art of textile Life Cycle Assessments (LCA)
• A few textile LCA analyses e.g for jeans, t-shirts, .. exist but based on high amount of
literature data
• Often cotton data referring to the LCA study done by Cotton Inc. like for example
sustainability indexes or fiber categories
• Cotton impact can vary depending on the type of cultivation method and the region.
• Public, certified available Cotton LCI data as a base of an accurate LCA are rare
Carbon dioxide emissions
Stockholm Environment Institute
(2005)
Carbon dioxide emissions
Stockholm Environment Institute
(2005)

8. EcoLogTex - ICT4S 8

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Data collection Product Life Cycle Inventory
Mid point impacts
according EU
requirements
*Page 109 ILCD
Handbook:
Climate Change
Online data questionnaire Product and Process data Ozone Depletion
for first level high quality data
Human Toxicity
Respiratory inorganics
Ionizing radiation
Photochemical Ozone
formation
Acidification
(land and water)
Eutrophication
(land and water)
Ecotoxicity
Land Use
Resources depletion
(minerals, fossil and
Process Life Cycle Inventory renewable energy

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The information flow: from data to impacts

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The supply chain designer
• Traditional supply chain design problem
– decompose your chain as a sequence of activities/processes
• procure raw cotton
• transport to processing site
• weaving and dying
• transport to processing site
• shirt manufacturing and assembly (other processes converging)
• transport to distribution sites
• transport to marketing sites
• All of this can be modelled as a mathematical programming problem
– costs of processes
– time of processes

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The supply chain designer: the layout
Partial supply chain (till
secondary production
plants).
Transportation to hubs
and warehouses is not
depicted
Given a product with some selected characteristics:
Multiple transportation modes can be considered
Alternative supply chains are available

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The supply chain designer: indicators
For each possible arc of the
graph (transportation
operation), we have 3
indicators:
1. economical cost
2. environmental impact
3. travel time
Each of these indicators can be uncertain. Examples:
The travel time can be modeled as an interval (between 10 and 14 days)
The travel time can be modeled as a probability distribution (normal distribution with
mean 8 days and standard deviation 2.3 days)

14. EcoLogTex - ICT4S
The supply chain designer: the algorithm
The target of the algorithm is to
propose the user different
alternative supply chains,
optimized according to the
different objective functions,
taking uncertainty into account
•Supply chain A, has a total economical cost of [2500, 3200], an average impact of
35.3 (standard deviation 3.2) and a total production+travel time of [3.5, 4.2] months
•Supply chain B, has a total economical cost of 4000, an average impact of 15.3
(standard deviation 3.2) and a total production+travel time of 5.3 months
•Supply chain C, has an average economical cost of 8400 (standard deviation 223.4) ,
an impact of 18.4 and a total production+travel time of 2.2 months

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Conclusions
• EcoLogTex aims to deliver a support tool for the design of sustainable supply chains
• A lot of effort needs to go on data collection
• The EcoLogTex model assumes the collaboration of suppliers and their involvement in a
“virtuous information enrichment circle”
• Opens the possibility of “ex-ante” impact assessment
• The use of recent OR techniques can effectively help decision makers in the efficient
exploration of the space of possible solutions
• A first prototype is expected to be ready towards June 2013

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The project team
This research is supported by the Commission
for Technology and Innovation of the Federal
Department of Economic Affairs of the Swiss
Confederation, project number 12400.1 PFES-
ES.