Sustainability Report 2022-23 paperturn - Flipbook - Page 25
Mapping the environmental impact throughout the
complete product life cycle
Gabriel has always focused on how products affect the environment throughout their life
cycle, and it has always been a priority to manufacture high-quality products with a long
lifespan and a composition that maximises recyclability.
The environmental profile of our products is, for example,
documented through certifications, including EU Ecolabel,
OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100, and Cradle to Cradle Certified®.
To improve our level of information regarding a product’s
environmental impact across the full life cycle, we have intensified our work with life cycle assessments.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
A life cycle assessment is an assessment of a product’s potential
environmental impact across the full life cycle within a wide
range of environmental focus areas, including climate, water,
and health. A product’s environmental impact is estimated
and evaluated by charting all the resources, materials, water,
energy, waste, and emissions which are used and/or produced
throughout the product’s life cycle. Subsequently, software
converts the data into a potential environmental impact. To
map all inputs and outputs, Gabriel’s suppliers and business
partners are closely involved in the data collection process,
ensuring that the products’ potential environmental impacts
are as precise as possible.
The purpose of conducting life cycle assessments is to create
an insight into products’ related environmental impacts that
allows us to evaluate new as well as existing products, production technologies, and production chains from an environmental perspective and to make fact-based decisions in the
future. With an overview of the potential environmental impacts,
we also ensure that we do not prioritise specific environmental focus areas at the expense of others. Finally, the life cycle
assessments enable Gabriel employees to guide and support
our customers, suppliers, and partners from a documented
environmental perspective.
Focus Melange is made from 100% wool. The
fabric’s ultra-softness has been obtained
without the use of harmful chemicals.
Life cycle assessments have been an integral part of our way of
thinking at Gabriel for years. A lot has changed, however, when
it comes to sustainability and the environment, since Gabriel
conducted the first life cycle assessments in 2000. Especially
the view on the potential and importance of life cycle assessments has changed significantly, and it is therefore a natural
development that life cycle assessments have come to play
a more central role in regards to product level certifications.
Assessments of selected designs
As a start, Gabriel conducts life cycle assessments of selected
designs made from different materials. Together, the selected
designs broadly cover Gabriel’s product portfolio, including
wool, wool-polyamide blends, and new as well as recycled polyester. Even though the selected products’ potential
environmental impacts are not directly transferable to other
Gabriel products, the LCA results still provide an indication of
how other product designs with similar material compositions
and production chains impact the environment.
New LCA’s will be published in the course of the financial year
2023/24 and in the long term, the plan is to continuously expand
the number of LCA’s for Gabriel products. We already have
large amounts of data available and can support customers
and business partners with data for calculating climate impact.
Based on international standards
Gabriel’s LCA efforts and reporting standards comply with
international ISO-standards for LCA’s: ISO 14040:2006 and ISO
14044:2006. The life cycle assessment results, methodology,
and underlying methodological choices will be made available
as Environmental Product Declarations – also called EPDs.
Step is made of Trevira CS, a polyester ma terial suitable for environments with special
fire safety requirements.
Renewed Loop is a 100% recycled and re cyclwable design based on textile-to-textile
recycling (contains 3-10% textile waste).
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