Jeanologia releases first industry-wide impact report
Jeanologia’s scoring system, EIM for Environmental Impact Measuring, is widely used by laundries and has become a recognised benchmark in the denim industry. It is also a source of invaluable data that has informed a report, authored by EIM platform creator Begoña García, and Michael Kininmonth, a textile engineer who was formerly at Lenzing. The report, “Innovations and Challenges in Denim Finishing: 2024”, draws on data points from January to December 2024 for some 115,000 denim finishing processes logged onto the EIM platform by 337 companies. The company pointed out that it only has access to the final score of each process and not the details. The reliability of the platform is backed by independent firm GoBlu International Limited.
The main finding of the report is that 63% of the processes analysed score a low environmental impact. With regards to water consumption, the report finds that current average water usage in denim finishing is 30 litres per garment, which the authors state is still above the recommended benchmark of 22.5 litres per item. It recommends expanding the implementation of ozone, e-flow and smart foam systems.
The report delves into the details by process and category, and suggests measures to reduce impacts at every stage of jeans-making.
“For years, the textile industry has lacked reliable tools to measure its environmental impact, making data-driven decisions difficult. This report marks a crucial step toward transparency and continuous improvement, showing that technology is key to measuring and reducing environmental impact,” commented Begoña García.
Click here to download the report.
