For Defra, Giraffe was involved helping to produce a sustainable clothing roadmap to identify life cycle sustainability impacts and to improve performance across a range of environmentally ‘challenging’ products. This included a significant desktop study – requiring the evaluation of around 50 LCA reports – followed by international stakeholder workshops and review. Specific project related tasks included:
- Clothes cleaning technology comparison (appliances);
- Comparing new technologies including lower water usage vs. high power consumption and the development of the ‘virtually’ waterless washing machine; and
- Determining likely/possible trends that impact clothes cleaning (e.g. societal changes and changes in material types).