The global fashion, textile, and apparel industry has a vast and complex environmental footprint, driving the urgent need for accurate and transparent impact measurement. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is currently the most widely adopted tool for quantifying environmental impacts across supply chains. While LCAs offer a structured, ISO-based methodology to evaluate impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and resource depletion, their application is often misinterpreted or misused. The position paper “Ensuring Integrity in the Use of Life Cycle Assessment Data” by Textile Exchange calls for industry-wide integrity in the use of LCA data, emphasizing both its strengths and limitations, and introduces an expanded “LCA+” approach to address critical gaps.

Key Recommendations for Using LCA Data
Textile Exchange provides clear guidelines for responsible use of LCA data. These include:

• Applying LCA data only with full understanding of assumptions, methods, and boundaries, ideally with expert consultation;
• Avoiding comparisons between unrelated LCA studies, or between fundamentally different material categories (e.g., synthetic vs. natural fibers) or geographies, as these systems are not like-for-like;
• Improving data quality and transparency by fully documenting methodological choices, assumptions, and limitations;
• Leveraging supplier-specific and high-quality primary data for Scope 3 footprinting, while using LCA databases (such as Higg MSI or Quantis WALDB) with caution;
• Expanding measurement beyond standard LCA indicators to include biodiversity, soil health, water quality, animal welfare, and livelihoods—what Textile Exchange terms the “LCA+” approach.

Challenges and Limitations of LCAs
While LCAs provide valuable insights, they face several structural limitations:

• They are static and represent impacts at a single point in time, making continuous progress tracking difficult;
• Results often rely on averages across geographies, masking important local variations;
• Secondary data is frequently used to fill gaps, but may not reflect real-world conditions;
• LCAs typically exclude broader impact areas such as biodiversity or social dimensions, providing only a partial picture;
• Methodological assumptions—such as system boundaries, allocation rules, and background datasets—are subjective, limiting comparability between studies.

Textile Exchange’s Role and Current Initiatives
Recognizing these limitations, Textile Exchange has launched seven priority LCA studies covering cotton, polyester, leather, wool, mohair, nylon, and cashmere. These studies emphasize pre-spin (raw material and early processing) impacts, where the largest data gaps exist. Data is being collected with direct engagement from producers and validated through independent review to ensure transparency and credibility. Results will be integrated into industry databases and Textile Exchange’s open-source Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) Library.
Additionally, the organization has developed complementary frameworks, such as the Regenerative Agriculture Outcome Framework, to capture beneficial outcomes not addressed by conventional LCAs. These tools aim to support a holistic, context-specific approach to impact measurement that balances environmental, social, and animal welfare considerations.

Conclusion
LCAs remain essential for measuring environmental performance and meeting growing regulatory requirements, but they must be applied responsibly. Misuse of LCA data—particularly through inappropriate comparisons—can lead to misleading conclusions and misguided decision-making. Textile Exchange advocates for continuous improvement of LCA data quality, adoption of LCA+, and collaborative efforts across the industry to close data gaps. Ultimately, the goal is to create a more accurate, transparent, and holistic system of impact measurement that drives meaningful progress toward sustainability in fashion and textiles.