Combined application of energy and material flow analysis and ecological footprint for the environmental evaluation of a tailoring factory

Abstract

Two environmental evaluation methodologies, namely energy and materials flow analysis (EMFA) and ecological footprint (EF), were combined to assess a tailoring factory that produced jackets in the period 2002-2005. During the EMFA, aided by the software Umberto(®) 5.5, cutting was identified as the most energy consuming stage and gas-oil as an important source of pollution in spite of its low contribution to energy supply. The EF appraisal was built on the basis of a previous work, incorporating methodological contributions developed by the authors that made the indicator more suitable for its application at corporate level. Initially, an increasing tendency in the indicator was observed (from 37.8 in 2002 to 45.2 gm(2)/jacket in 2005). When including other emissions apart from CO(2), the results conveyed a significant increase in EF that ranged from 80% in 2002 to 14% in 2004, demonstrating that this contribution should not be disregarded when evaluating production processes. Finally, sensitivity analyses were carried out to assess the influence in the EF of the variability in input variables. When emissions were not included, the most influencing input flow was the cotton fabric; otherwise gas-oil became the most relevant factor. Therefore, its substitution for cleaner sources of energy was advised.