LONDON — June 11, 2026 — Textile Exchange has published its new polyester Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study, providing robust, accurate, and credible data to strengthen the fashion, textile, and apparel industry’s understanding of the impacts of different types of polyester production.
The study is the second in a series of LCA studies led by Textile Exchange and addresses key gaps and limitations in the LCA data currently available for polyester.
It includes what is believed to be the first known publicly available data on the environmental impacts of virgin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) production from Southeast Asia—where over half of the world’s virgin PET is produced.1 The study also identifies major impact hotspots for different production processes to inform where impact reductions are most needed, adding new data on both thermomechanical and chemical recycling technologies.
Like all Textile Exchange LCA studies, it takes a holistic “LCA+” approach, in this case including an assessment of the human rights impacts associated with polyester production.
As with all LCA data, comparisons should not be made between studies or between datasets within individual studies, such as production systems or regions.
Textile Exchange’s cotton LCA study was published in March this year, with further studies being released throughout 2026 and 2027.
Beth Jensen, Chief Impact Officer at Textile Exchange, said: “This LCA study marks a significant update to existing polyester LCA data and advances our understanding of the impacts of its production for the fashion, textile, and apparel industry. By addressing known data gaps across both virgin and recycled polyester, and by identifying major hotspot impact areas, these findings create a stronger foundation for making informed decisions that support the shift toward preferred production systems.”
Adam Gardiner, Recycled Lead at Textile Exchange, said: “There is significant industry investment and momentum behind the development of new technologies for textile-to-textile recycling. This LCA study provides both brands and recyclers with credible and up-to-date data on such systems, while identifying opportunities to reduce their impact.”
“Traditionally, recycled production systems within the textile industry have focused primarily on the recycling plant itself. By taking an “LCA+” approach, this study enables a greater understanding of the significant social impact and vast network that exists before the recycler. To design a successful lower impact recycling system, it needs to protect and support the livelihoods of all people throughout the value chain.”
About the Textile Exchange polyester LCA study
All Textile Exchange LCA studies use a cradle-to-gate approach. For polyester, the study assesses impacts from resource extraction through to fiber formation.
The study focuses on virgin polyester production in Southeast Asia and recycled polyester production in China, Europe, and the United States. It includes the following impact categories and indicators in the main body of the report:
- Climate change (global warming potential of greenhouse gas emissions)
- Acidification (acidifying effects in soil, water, and ecosystems)
- Eutrophication (excessive richness of nutrients in a lake or other body of water, frequently due to runoff from the land, which causes a dense growth of plant life and death of animal life from lack of oxygen)
- Abiotic depletion (consumption and reduction of non-living natural resources, such as minerals and fossil fuels)
- Freshwater ecotoxicity (biological, chemical, or physical stressors that affect freshwater ecosystems)
- Water scarcity (water consumption considering local water availability)
- Freshwater consumption (volume of freshwater consumed)
However, all 16 indicators recommended in the European Commission Environmental Footprint 3.1 database reference package are also included in the analysis.
Key findings
- How polyester is produced strongly influences its environmental impact. Depending on the technology, key hotspots include the production of virgin fossil fuel-based (petrochemical) inputs, waste collection and sorting (for recycled polyester only), energy use, and transport.
- For virgin polyester: The production of the main petrochemicals used to make virgin polyester (particularly monoethylene glycol (MEG), purified terephthalic acid (PTA), and dimethyl terephthalate (DMT)) is the dominant contributor to most impact categories. The energy sources used for electricity and heat and their associated emissions are another major contributor.
- For thermomechanical recycling: Electricity use and feedstock collection, especially when waste materials must travel long distances to processing facilities, are two major hotspots for climate change, acidification, eutrophication, and abiotic depletion of fossil fuels.
- For chemical recycling: The two largest environmental hotspots were found to be energy consumption for electricity and heat, based on the sources and their associated emissions, and the use of input chemicals used in the recycling process, including solvents like methanol.
- Human rights impacts: The social assessment found that polyester production can have serious impacts on workers and surrounding communities, including unsafe working conditions, labor rights violations, and gender-based violence. Impacts also include violence by law enforcement against local communities in efforts to secure access to oil and gas extraction sites around the world, as well as severe health impacts linked to accidental spills and pollution.
- For recycling, both PET plastic bottles and textile-to-textile supply chains are often informal and poorly regulated, which can lead to human rights impacts. However, the textile-to-textile recycling supply chain in particular holds the potential to provide meaningful solutions to help tackle the world’s textile waste crisis.
Key action points
- The LCA study identifies virgin fossil-based inputs as the largest contributor to environmental impact in virgin PET production. This underscores that reducing—and ultimately eliminating—reliance on virgin fossil-based inputs is a critical lever for driving impact reduction, as laid out in Textile Exchange’s Principles of Preferred Production Systems.
- Complementary measures, such as increasing renewable energy use and sourcing waste locally to minimize transport emissions, play an important role in further reducing impacts—particularly within recycled systems.
- The findings also reinforce the key actions brands and retailers should take to support recycling technologies, including investing in post-consumer collection, sorting technologies, and enabling infrastructure.
- For human rights, the study highlights the importance of looking beyond labor rights to consider the full spectrum of human rights when assessing impacts on people. Companies should work toward full traceability of their polyester supply chains by engaging with supply chain actors and progressively mapping upstream to the origin.
Submission to industry databases
As with all the Textile Exchange LCA studies, the data will be submitted to industry databases for broad accessibility and useability.
The data is primarily intended to serve as proxy data, in cases where source-specific LCA data is not available. It is designed to provide a credible, consistent foundation for understanding the impacts of polyester production and to inform data-driven action toward preferred production systems.
Responsible use of LCA data
Textile Exchange’s LCA studies are designed to improve data integrity for each specific fiber or material. They all include fully documented assumptions, methodological decisions, limitations, and underlying datasets, ensuring transparency and enabling consistent use.
Each study has been led by a consultant with expertise in both LCA methodology and the specific raw material or fiber production system being assessed. They have been critically reviewed by independent expert panels, and each assessment also conforms to ISO standards.
As with all LCA data, comparisons should not be made between studies or between datasets within individual studies, such as production systems or regions. The findings in all LCA studies are sensitive to methodological choices, assumptions, and boundaries. The same dataset can produce different results when applied within different methods.
Last year, Textile Exchange released Ensuring Integrity in the Use of Life Cycle Assessment Data, a comprehensive position paper outlining best practice for the use of LCA data. It provides guidance on how LCA data should be used, and—equally importantly—how it should not be used. It is intended for anyone looking to develop a greater understanding of the use of LCA studies and LCA data in the textile industry—particularly for brands using LCA data directly or for those who rely on it for their impact modeling or progress tracking. The paper is available on the Textile Exchange website.
Read Ensuring Integrity in the Use of Life Cycle Assessment Data
Posted: June 11, 2026
Source: Textile Exchange
