WAKEFIELD – In our latest Ecotextile Talks podcast, we’re joined by Alisia Mätz, product manager of Oekotex’s STeP certification program to discuss the company’s new ‘Impact Calculator’ tool and how it can help textile mills to mitigate their environmental impacts.
Quizzed by podcast host Philip Berman, Mätz explains what went into the research and development of this new measurement tool and assesses its potential to reduce textile facility-level carbon and water footprints.
She explains how the tool, which is free to use for existing STeP certified suppliers, was released because: “the industry’s impact on climate change increased by around 35 per cent between 2005 and 2016 so we want to help improve that.”
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And with the Impact Calculator now rolled into Oekotex’s STeP certification program, she says it cannot just validate a manufacturing site’s water and energy credentials, but it also aims to ensure optimal health and safety standards for the textile workers in these factories.
It main focuses, however, is on a manufacturer’s carbon emissions and water usage by enabling site managers to log each individual activity (and process) to ultimately yield accurate calculations and reliable data around emissions.
“It took us time to establish what we wanted to get out of it and what’s really important for the facilities,” Mätz admitted.
“We started with two indicators that are the most important for the industry, the carbon, and the water. Obviously, there are other indicators, but we really wanted to focus on these two first because we already have data available that we can connect with. In the future, we’d think about adding more processes and indicators to the tool,” she said.
It’s hoped that the existing 700+ Oeko-Tex STeP users will start to use this new tool as soon as possible.
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