Exploring the Impact of Sewing Garment Defects on Organizational Carbon Footprint with Special Reference to ABC Apperal Manufacturing Organization

Abstract

In global context, the apparel industry is accountable for about 10% of the CF of world and remains the second largest industrial polluter, second only to oil. Garments units emit GHGs through different ways such as electricity use, fossil fuel burning, transport fuels, chemical use, and waste etc. Therefore, the apparel industry is relatively working under pressure to achieve sustainability and reduce its Carbon Footprint. Today, Sri Lankan apparel organization is moving towards environmental sustainability to reduce their environmental impacts. Reducing organizational Carbon Footprint is significant role. Hence, researcher selected ABC Apparel organization which is the branch of leading apparel manufacturer in Sri Lanka. Sustainability is the unfamiliar concept of ABC’s group. But ABC apparel manufacturing organization has not yet calculated their Carbon Footprint which is the baseline situation towards sustainability. As per the group mission calculating carbon footprint has become an immediate requirement for this organization. Mainly they use fossil fuel bases grid energy which has significant impact on emit GHG gases. There is a significant consumption of electricity in this organization. Moreover, approximately 15% of garment in this organization have been identified as sewing garment defects (reworks) in 2019. It has to incur additional cost related to electricity, machine maintenance, raw material because of reworking the defective garments which ultimately cause to increase organizational carbon footprint. In this study, the researcher, firstly calculated the carbon footprint of the ABC Apparel manufacturing organization with the methodology guided by the GHG protocol and ISO 14064 standard. Based on the carbon footprint results researcher tested impact of sewing garment reworks on carbon footprint using the regression analysis. As per the results, the GHG emissions due to electricity consumption is the largest contributor to the total carbon footprint of the ABC Apparel manufacturing organization. Moreover, if it is incresed one defective sewing garment ,GHG emissions in electricity will incresed by 0.1023 of CO2e.This despites garments reworking does some what small impact on organizational carbon footprint. Hence, future researcher will able to do a study by considering other factors which cause to increase emission from electricity consumption other than the garment reworking.Furthermore recommendations was discussed in order to reduce organizatonal carbon footprint