"Carbon Footprint" Tracks The Source Of Energy Consumption

Can you imagine how much a Google search in daily life will emit carbon dioxide What? The latest research by Alex Wissner Gross, a physicist at Harvard University in the United States, points out that if you use your desktop computer at home to perform Google search twice, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted is almost equivalent to cooking a pot English tea Weisner Gross said that Google's search engine has used many huge data centers in the world, consuming a lot of power, and has an absolute impact on the environment. He estimated that every Google search would produce 7 grams of carbon dioxide, while a pot of British tea would produce 15 grams. The tracking result of this "carbon footprint" will irrefutably push Google to the arbitration court of carbon emission giants.

When it comes to energy management, it is very important to understand the energy use of each link, and measuring the carbon emissions of each link has become one of the standards for measuring energy consumption. The calculation of "carbon footprint" is widely used as a method to estimate the carbon consumption at each stage of the product life cycle.

　　“ Carbon footprint ”Reveal the essence of carbon consumption

Advocates of "green economy" are good at using the form of tracking the carbon footprint of products to reveal the carbon emissions of products. The British Environmental Resources Management Company once calculated the energy consumption of a 100% polyester trousers of about 400g in its "lifetime". The pants are produced in Taiwan, China, made in Indonesia, and shipped to the UK for sale. Assuming its service life is two years, it has undergone 92 times of washing, washed with a washing machine with 50 ℃ warm water, dried by a dryer, and then spent an average of 2 minutes ironing. In this way, the total power consumption is about 200 kilowatt hours. If the power is supplied by coal, it will emit about 47 kilograms of carbon dioxide, which is 117 times the weight of trousers (the emission factor in the UK is 0.235 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour). This measurement reveals the carbon footprint of a pair of pants in the whole life cycle, and the final result will also target the textile manufacturers with high carbon emissions.

Some analysis points out that if the process from raw materials to fabric making is compared to the fetal period of a garment's life cycle, the carbon emissions generated by the fetus will account for about 60%~70% of its total lifetime carbon emissions. Take cotton harvesting as an example. The mechanical cotton picking machine stripper, roller, steel shuttle, brush and other devices pick cotton bolls from the cotton plant. One 700W stripper works for one hour, and the amount of cotton picking is equivalent to the workload of 20 workers for one hour. Technological progress has improved efficiency. If electricity is provided by coal, it will produce 0.5516 kg of carbon emissions per hour of cotton picking, calculated as 0.788 kg of carbon emissions per kilowatt hour of electricity.

Of course, reducing energy consumption is not just a matter for fabric enterprises. Understanding the "carbon footprint" of products is crucial for both upstream and downstream enterprises in the textile industry, because the essence of the "low-carbon economy" is energy reform, and the measure that best reflects the effectiveness of energy management is also carbon emissions.

The only way to energy management

It cannot be ignored that, in addition to the purpose of improving the efficiency of energy use and reducing production costs, the other major goal of strengthening energy management is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Effective energy control can reduce carbon emissions, and tracking carbon emissions at all stages of a product's life cycle is the prerequisite for implementing various energy conservation and emission reduction measures.

The Specification for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gases in the Life Cycle of PAS 2050 Products and Services developed and promulgated by the British Standards Institute (BSI), as an independent standard, can be used to calculate the greenhouse gas emissions of products and services in the whole life cycle (from the acquisition of raw materials to production, distribution, use and disposal after abandonment), namely the product "carbon footprint". According to Ren Hui, the operation director of BSI Risk and Sustainable Development Service Center, this standard can help enterprises reduce the opportunities of greenhouse gas emissions formed in the process of managing their own, and help enterprises reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of products or services, and ultimately develop new products with a smaller "carbon footprint".

With the "carbon footprint", a favorable and accurate data repository, the low-carbon journey of products has just begun. For textiles, there is also a self-contained carbon reduction system.

Some experts pointed out that from the perspective of the life cycle of textiles, the product "carbon footprint" can be reduced from the following five aspects. First, develop low-carbon materials, improve various chemical dyes, and develop recyclable fibers to minimize the damage to the environment caused by fiber production, dyeing and other links; In terms of the improvement of production technology, we will improve energy efficiency and reduce pollution to reduce emissions through various ways, such as process transformation and simplification, mechanical transformation, heat recovery and textile wastewater recycling system; In the manufacturing process, low emission energy is used and renewable energy is developed to change the way of coal burning and steam heating in the past; Adopt sea transportation instead of air transportation, and use simple packaging instead of complicated packaging to avoid waste; Finally, properly reducing the water temperature during cleaning can also reduce the "carbon footprint" accordingly.

Consumer led "right to know carbon"

The improvement of consumers' recognition of "low-carbon consumption" is becoming a driving force for major textile and clothing survival businesses and brand businesses to consider environmental protection factors, except for rules and regulations. The latest survey shows that more than half (54%) of British customers clearly expressed their desire to use products with low-carbon labels, compared with 35% last year. In order to adapt to this change, terminal retailers have taken the lead in throwing out the "low-carbon" hydrangea.

Tesco, the third largest retailer in the world, will implement a two-year environmental protection plan, and successively label 20 kinds of self-produced goods of the store with "carbon footprint" labels. Consumers who buy these goods can clearly see the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the process from the beginning of processing to placing on the shelves. After entering TESCO, consumers can check the "carbon footprint" label of goods and take green shopping behavior according to their own environmental protection concept. "Our current goal is to attach carbon footprint labels to more than 500 products in the UK." Zhuang Nanbin, director and vice president of British TESCO China, revealed in an interview with the media, "TESCO's carbon footprint label can tell customers the carbon footprint of the commodity, and provide customers with tips on how to reduce emissions during use and disposal."

Even though most economists believe that Europe and the United States will not really introduce a hard "carbon label" policy to restrict imports of "Made in China", more and more foreign buyers have quietly begun to choose suppliers who can prove that the products manufactured are in line with environmental protection production standards. However, with the spread of the trend similar to TESCO's price marking for carbon emissions of products, the "right to know carbon" enjoyed by consumers is likely to become another sharp sword for European and American buyers to ban "high carbon" products.