Life Cycle Assessment Report: Nagnata vs Vege Threads - WSU

This report presents a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of two Australian apparel companies, Nagnata and Vege Threads, as part of a Sustainable Systems assignment. The study aims to identify the environmental impacts of each company's operations, from raw material acquisition to product usage and disposal. The report includes an executive summary, problem definition, estimated component weights, and a functional unit. It further analyzes material flow diagrams, impact assessments, and identifies environmental hotspots within each company's processes. Remedial measures are proposed to reduce the environmental footprint, leading to a selection of the most sustainable alternative. The report follows the ISO 14001 framework and includes a detailed analysis of the LCA stages, such as goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation. The analysis highlights the importance of sustainability in the apparel industry, considering customer preferences and the need for eco-friendly practices. The Nagnata company is ultimately selected as the better alternative due to its use of organic materials and vegetable dyes.

Running head: LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The life cycle assessment is the process of evaluating the environmental impact of the
organizational activities through its various life cycle stages on the environment. This process
helps the organizations in identifying their environmental impact of product in different stages of
the life cycle process from the stage of acquisition of raw material, to the stage of processing and
manufacturing, to the process of distribution and using the same. The main reason behind using
the LAC is to become sustainable because the customers have become conscious of the
environment and tend to support those organizations that have reduced impact on the
environment. The main companies that were chosen for the purpose of this study were the Vege
Threads and Nagnata (nagnata.com 2019). Both these brands deals in apparels and belongs to the
clothing industry and believes in the necessity to carry out activities sustainably
(vegethreads.com 2019). The paper will highlight the problem of the present processes, assigning
of weights to different components, a well-defined functional unit, material flow diagram, impact
analysis, identification of the areas that have the most environmental impact and taking remedial
actions to remove the same. The company chosen after the LAC is the Nagnata because this
organization carries out its activities more sustainability than others.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Problem definition...........................................................................................................................3
Estimated weight of each component and service life.....................................................................5
Well-defined functional unit............................................................................................................6
Material flow diagram.....................................................................................................................6
Impact analysis of each alternative..................................................................................................8
Identification of environmental impact of the processes of each alternative..................................9
Remedial measures to reduce the impact.........................................................................................9
Selection of the best alternative.....................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Life cycle assessment refers to the process of assessing the impact of the organization on
the environment of the different stages of the life cycle process of the products from the stage of
acquisition of raw material, to the stage of processing commodity, to the stage of manufacturing,
distribution and usage of the products or the services (Vilches, Garcia-Martinez and Sanchez-
Montanes 2017). It is used to understand the environmental impact of different products. This
process is basically used in R&D, process design or product design, and different others fields
because it helps the organization to identify its impacts on the environment in the life cycle
process and then identify steps to reduce the environmental impact and become sustainable. It
also helps in waste management. The company chosen for the purpose of this study is the
Nagnata apparels company of Australia and Vege Threads of Australia (nagnata.com 2019). The
paper will highlight the problem of the present processes, assigning of weights to different
components, a well-defined functional unit, material flow diagram, impact analysis,
identification of the areas that have the most environmental impact and taking remedial actions
to remove the same.
Problem definition
The main problem of the companies is that they are trying to reduce their impact on the
environment and they both are having impact on the environment. The same service that is that
of apparels is being provided by the two companies in Australia that are Nagnata and Vege
threads. This problem is chosen because sustainability is an important aspect that all the
organizations need to look after and customers prefer those organizations which carry outs its

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operations in such a way to minimize the impact on the environment because the customers has
become conscious of the environment. The procedure defined by international operations of
standards or the ISO for the life cycle assessment includes various stages for carrying out the
LCA.
Figure 1: The LCA framework of ISO
Source: (Herrmann and Moltesen 2015)
According to the ISO there are four main stages of the life cycle assessment process that
is scope and goal definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation. The main
purpose of carrying out the LCA is to compare the environmental impacts of all products and
services by way of quantifying outputs and inputs and seeing how these flows affects the
environment (Mälkki and Alanne 2017). The main objective of carrying out LCA is to carry out

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holistic assessment of all the life cycle processes of the product. The LCA procedures is a part of
the ISO: 14001 that looks after all environmental activities of the organization. The next stage is
the analysis of the life cycle inventory ( LCI) which sees the flow of resources from and to the
nature. These flow of resources include: energy, water and other natural resources. For this
purpose a flow model is prepared. The third stage is that of assessing the impact of the life
cycle. It consists of various elements such as category selection of the organization and various
models for the same purpose. There are various impact parameters against which the impact
measurement is done (Celik et al. 2016). The last stage is that of interpretations. This stage
identifies the information of the LCI or other relevant information of the LCA and to evaluate the
same. According to the international operations standards, the interpretation stage should include
various activities such as identification of issues of LCA, evaluate the same and to make various
recommendations and to conclude based on that.
Estimated weight of each component and service life
Components Weight Service life
Yarn 25gms 1 year
Dye 1-2gms 1-2 years
Fabric 20gms 2-3 years
Organic cotton 15gms 1 year
Figure 2: components weight and service life
Source: (Created by the author)
Components Weight Service life
Fabric 25gms 1year

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Cotton 15gms 2year
Yarn 20gms 1year
Buttons 10gms 1year
Figure 3: table of components, its weight and its service life
Source: ( Created by author)
Well-defined functional unit
The functional unit defines the service that is required to be served and provided by the
product. A well-defined functional unit will help in defining the environmental impact of the
products in terms of the services delivered by the product. A functional unit should fulfill the
following: the product should deliver such services that is required by the customers for
consumption. In case of durable products orb products containing water it is important to have
numeric value for the same. The functional unit determined by the organization can be changed
at the concept level. The company decides the functional unit depending upon the time period for
which that product can provide service and meet the customers need. For instance the service
providing products such as the radios can provide service for a period for 3years. However there
are many products that cannot exist for a long period of time such as consumables its functional
unit will be determined on the basis of ounces of servings. The functional units for the clothes
are usually 3-4years depending upon its use. It can be said that the clothes are expected to
provide service for a period of 3-4years.

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Material flow diagram
Figure 4: the material flow diagram
Source: (Jawahir and Bradley 2016)
The material flow can be understood with the help of the model as provide by Ayres
knees. According the author the process of voluntary exchange is decentralized and is not free
from any technological diseconomies until all inputs are converted into outputs provide the
environmental waste capacity is scarce and in this way the residual will be destroyed. According
to the author all the activities of production, distribution and consumption are related to nature.
Nature provides all the resources for the process of production and consumption and the
companies also returns these in form of various disservices and this is how the residuals are
returned to the nature (Garcia and You 2015). According to the material flow model, all the
resources of environment taken from the environment is returned to the environment. This model

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assumes that all the market failures related to production and consumption are pervasive and
therefore will happen irrespective of the recycling activities of the organization this wastage
cannot be avoided or stopped completely. Similarly both the organizations under study are also
producing products which is consumed but there is also some parts that are discarded as residuals
because they cannot be re-used. The organizations should try to reduce to residuals of the
company by asking use of the same and by putting the residuals to various uses. The Nagnata
Company is preparing its frill top by cotton and vegetable dyed colors and helping in using
various vegetable left overs to prepare the dyes out of it with which its products are prepared.
The Vege Threads has decided to stop wasting resources and as a result they have minimized
their purchases and believe that it is important to buy better and buying less for the same
purchase.
Impact analysis of each alternative
The Nagnata company carries out sustainable activities by producing its frill tops with the
help of vegetable dyes and therefore it tries to reduce the vegetable leftovers by making use of
the same and its impact on the environment because instead of being made with toxins it is made
of vegetable dye and therefore helps it reducing the environmental impact. The company uses
organic yarns to produce its clothes and therefore tries to reduce the environmental impact but
the company fails to make any re-use of its products or reuse of residuals that could be used for
alternative purposes. The Vege threads carry out sustainable activities by producing commodities
that are made organic material and dyes and has got accreditation from Australian ethical
clothing. However the main impact of the life cycle phase for the company is in the usage stage
because the garments produced by the company does not have longevity and durability.

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Identification of environmental impact of the processes of each alternative
Both the companies are known for their sustainability acts and environmental friendly
products. The Nagnata company is known for producing its products from organic cloth yarn
material and also vegetable dye that reduced the impact on the environment however it needs to
reduce its impact through re-using its products and residual material such that the material that is
being wasted because they are not being able to be put to other uses and so all the residual
material is being wasted (Reis et al. 2015). On the other hand, the Vege Threads company is
known for its organic denim jeans and is the name itself suggests it produces commodities that
are made of organic material. The impact of this company on the environment is that they
produce commodities which lack longevity and durability and therefore these commodities add
to the waste once they are used.
Remedial measures to reduce the impact
In order to deal with impacts of the organizations environmental impacts after going
through the life cycle assessment process can be reduced by carrying out various remedial
actions. The main problem that the Nagnata company faces is that they need to think of
innovative ideas to target its residual material before disposal or they should try to make use of
the same by putting it to alternative uses. The main problem faced by the Vege threads company
is that they produce commodities which do not have longevity and as a result the company’s
products gets obsoleted fast and needs to discarded and therefore it only adds to the waste.
Therefore the company should try to make products that have longevity. Moreover the industry
to which these companies belong is ranked at number 3 for generating pollution and therefore
they need to look after these activities in order to reduce its impact.

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Selection of the best alternative
The best alternative of the two companies- the Nagnata and the Vege threads are
providing the same service to meet the needs of people. Both the companies are providing
apparels that are eco-friendly and therefore help in reducing the environmental impact and is
made for customers who are conscious of environment. The best alternative is the nagnata since
it is known for producing its products with organic materials and others, they use vegetable dyes
for the purpose of printing its material. The company has launched many programs for the
purpose of saving the material of yarn to avoid any wastage and the movement was called as the
Nagnata 001 movement. This movement was engaged in producing technical knit-wear and all
the garments were produced as fully knitwear pieces to avoid wastage. This method avoids
wastage much more as compared to traditional cut and sews method. The company makes
commodities for the customers who feel that they have a responsibility towards the environment.
The brand ensures that commodities are not overproduced within the capacity of the
organization.
Conclusion
From the above discussion it can be concluded that life cycle assessment helps in
identifying the life cycle process stage that has an impact on the environment and therefore helps
their organization in identifying the same and take corrective actions in time. The paper
highlights the impacts of other two organizations on the environment chosen for the purpose of
the study and involves carrying out the step of impact assessment in order to analyses the impact
of the company and its process on the environment and on the basis of this impact assessment
taking corrective actions in order to minimize the same. The paper also discussed about the

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selection of the alternative that has the lowest impact on the environment on the basis of LCA or
the life cycle assessment. Both the companies affect the environment in some way or the other
and it is the duty of the organizations to minimize the same in order to become sustainability.
The company selected for the purpose of this study after carrying out the life cycle assessment is
the Nagnata because of its environment friendly materials used to produce the commodities.

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References
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Assessment (LCA) of perovskite PV cells projected from lab to fab. Solar Energy Materials and
Solar Cells, 156, pp.157-169.
Garcia, D. and You, F., 2015. Product and Process Network Modeling and Pathway
Optimization with Life Cycle Functional Unit Analysis: The Case of Biofuels. In Computer
Aided Chemical Engineering (Vol. 37, pp. 2069-2074). Elsevier.
Herrmann, I.T. and Moltesen, A., 2015. Does it matter which Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool
you choose?–a comparative assessment of SimaPro and GaBi. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 86, pp.163-169.
Jawahir, I.S. and Bradley, R., 2016. Technological elements of circular economy and the
principles of 6R-based closed-loop material flow in sustainable manufacturing. Procedia
Cirp, 40, pp.103-108.
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based teaching in renewable and sustainable energy education. Renewable and Sustainable
Energy Reviews, 69, pp.218-231.
nagnata.com (2019). NAGNATA fashion and lifestyle designed for studio-to-street style |
NAGNATA. [online] Nagnata.com. Available at: https://nagnata.com/ [Accessed 12 Jun. 2019].

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Reis, S., Morris, G., Fleming, L.E., Beck, S., Taylor, T., White, M., Depledge, M.H., Steinle, S.,
Sabel, C.E., Cowie, H. and Hurley, F., 2015. Integrating health and environmental impact
analysis. public health, 129(10), pp.1383-1389.
vegethreads.com (2019). Vege Threads. [online] Vege Threads. Available at:
https://www.vegethreads.com/ [Accessed 12 Jun. 2019].
Vilches, A., Garcia-Martinez, A. and Sanchez-Montanes, B., 2017. Life cycle assessment (LCA)
of building refurbishment: A literature review. Energy and Buildings, 135, pp.286-301.