Life Cycle Assessment Academic Project

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Jumpers

This project was part of our academic curriculum at Politecnico di Torino, where we explored the environmental footprint of textile products using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. Our team performed a full LCA on jumpers made from cotton, wool, and acrylic fibers.

The goal was to evaluate the environmental impact of each material—from raw material extraction, production, and use, all the way to disposal. We followed the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards and used OpenLCA software with the Ecoinvent database to perform our assessments.

We focused on key environmental impact categories such as climate change, acidification, resource depletion, water use, and land use. Each fiber showed different strengths and weaknesses depending on the impact metric.

Acrylic fibers had the highest impact in categories like acidification and fossil resource use, while cotton showed the highest water consumption. Wool generally had a more balanced profile, but with its own environmental trade-offs.

The study concluded that switching from acrylic to cotton-based fibers could reduce the carbon footprint of jumper production by around 35%. However, water management remains a major concern with cotton.

Working on this project helped me learn how to collect, structure, and analyze environmental data in a team setting. It strengthened my understanding of sustainability beyond materials, into systems thinking and real-world impact.

Note: This project was completed as a team effort. If you’d like access to the full report or are working on something similar, feel free to reach out.