It is also a similar magnitude to the total direct emissions of Slovakia in 2019 (42 million tonnes), or the business and government direct emissions of Sweden (47 million tonnes).

Due to the extent of off-shored production in the industry, more than 90 per cent of the fashion industry’s emissions—or 34.5 million tonnes—came from upstream activities like materials production, preparation and processing, the council said in its German Fashion Footprint report on the global impact of the country’s fashion industry.

The report assesses the impact of the industry in 2019, before the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which severely reduced output across many sectors of the world economy.

China was the most prominent location for these emissions, at 9.2 million tonnes. Direct emissions by the industry in Germany itself amounted to only 2 million tonnes, while 1.7 million tonnes came indirectly from emissions linked to electricity purchased by the industry in Germany.

Greenhouse gas emissions are closely tied to the amount of energy used by an industry. The council estimated that the German fashion industry required a total of 535,000 terajoules of energy across its direct and supply chain activities in 2019. This is a similar magnitude to the direct electrical power usage for all purposes in the Netherlands, at 510,000 terajoules in 2018, it said in a press release.

The vast majority (83 per cent) of the German fashion industry’s power usage was supplied through fossil fuels, with the remainder split between nuclear power and renewable energy sources.

In 2019, the air pollution footprint of the German fashion industry and its global supply chains was estimated to be 410,000 tonnes of carbon monoxide, 110,000 tonnes of volatile organic compounds, 100,000 tonnes of nitrogen oxides, 90,000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide and 30,000 tonnes of particulate matter.

To put these figures into perspective, the German fashion industry’s global carbon monoxide footprint was equivalent to 13 per cent of all emissions of carbon monoxide from within Germany from all sources.

As the economic output of the domestic fashion sector is equivalent to approximate 1 per cent of German gross domestic product (GDP), this highlights the extent to which the air pollution from fashion consumption in Germany is outsourced to other countries, the council noted in its report.

It estimated that the country’s fashion industry had a total water footprint of 6.5 billion cubic metres in 2019. Roughly two thirds (4.0 billion cubic metres) of this were ‘green water’, or rainfall, used in growing crops. This is roughly equivalent to a large road tanker of water per resident of Germany per year.

A further 1.6 billion cubic metres was ‘grey water’, or water polluted and returned to the water supply. Finally, 900 million cubic metres of ‘blue water’ were required: water taken from the public water supply for activities like the water baths needed for adding dyes and other chemicals to fabric and the water required to wash machinery after its use.

The agricultural land requirement for the German fashion and its global supply chains was estimated at 2.5 million hectares worldwide. This is equivalent to the majority of Belgium (3 million hectares), and reflects the land required to produce the cotton used in fashion items.

The report considered the impact of the operations of fashion brands and retailers within Germany, as well as the global impact of clothing and footwear sold in Germany, but manufactured elsewhere.

Not considered was the impact created by the activities of German-owned companies manufacturing overseas and selling to customers abroad.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)