A Traceability Platform for Monitoring Environmental and Social Sustainability in the Textile and Clothing Value Chain: Towards a Digital Passport for Textiles and Clothing

Luís Alves, Miguel Sá, Estrela Ferreira Cruz, Toni Alves, Marcelo Alves, João Oliveira, Manuel Santos and António Miguel Rosado da Cruz ()
Additional contact information
Luís Alves: Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Praça General Barbosa 44, 4900-348 Viana do Castelo, Portugal
Miguel Sá: CITEVE—Centro Tecnológico das Indústrias Têxtil e do Vestuário, Rua Fernando Mesquita 2785, 4760-034 Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal
Estrela Ferreira Cruz: Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Praça General Barbosa 44, 4900-348 Viana do Castelo, Portugal
Toni Alves: Centro de Computação Gráfica, Campus de Azurém, Edifício 14, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
Marcelo Alves: INFOS-Informática e Serviços S.A., Rua Veloso Salgado 971 1011, 4450-801 Leça da Palmeira, Portugal
João Oliveira: CITEVE—Centro Tecnológico das Indústrias Têxtil e do Vestuário, Rua Fernando Mesquita 2785, 4760-034 Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal
Manuel Santos: Centro de Computação Gráfica, Campus de Azurém, Edifício 14, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
António Miguel Rosado da Cruz: Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Praça General Barbosa 44, 4900-348 Viana do Castelo, Portugal

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-24

Abstract: Textile and clothing is one of the most important industrial sectors, not only due to the significant number of jobs generated, but also because it addresses one of the people’s fundamental needs (clothing). It is, however, a sector with a huge global environmental impact, and also an important negative social impact, especially in developing countries. Sustainability in the textile and clothing value chain is a known issue, concerning both environmental and economic-social facets of sustainability. One way to improve sustainability in this sector is by measuring and monitoring the environmental, economic and social impacts of activities along the value chain and, ultimately, computing an environmental and circular score for each batch of textile and clothing product, and an economic and social score for each involved company, reflected in their products. The consumer will then have the opportunity and responsibility for selecting products with the least negative environmental, economic and social impact. This article aims to propose a decentralized traceability platform for the textile and clothing value chain, based on blockchain technology, for tracing textile product batches and activities, along the value chain, classifying them with a score, which measures their environmental and social impact. The environmental, economic and social impact scores are based on a set of proposed indicators. The results are assessed through two test scenarios, namely a face towel (home textile) and a T-shirt (clothing).

Keywords: textile and clothing value chain; blockchain-based traceability platform; environmental and social impact score; sustainability index; digital product passport; sustainable and cleaner production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/1/82/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/1/82/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2023:i:1:p:82-:d:1304503

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().