Helping LESTRANGE’s Customers Understand the Environmental Impact of their Shopping and Care Habits
Empowering Consumers with Data-Driven Insights to Reduce their Footprint
As the climate crisis becomes more acute, customers are demanding to know more about their clothing’s impact on the environment. 66% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products (McKinsey x The Business of Fashion) and reduce their consumer carbon footprint, but there are few examples of brands providing informative tools and guidance on post-purchase clothing impact on the environment — how the way the product is used, cared for and disposed of directly contributes to carbon emissions and impact of fashion over time.
London-based menswear brand LESTRANGE was founded on the idea that building a modular and timeless wardrobe would reduce the desire for impulse purchasing and encourage more intentional choices, also lowering the environmental impact of our clothes.
To understand the carbon emissions and impact of LESTRANGE fashion products and communicate effective wear and care guidance to its consumers, LESTRANGE teamed up with Vaayu to launch Re_Count: the world’s first automated, science-based fashion carbon footprint calculator. The tool was designed to measure clothing impact on the environment and help customers see how their fashion habits impact their consumer carbon footprint in the context of an annual carbon budget.
Driving Consumer Awareness and Action on the Environmental Impact of Clothes
Customers worldwide are looking for ways to reduce their fashion footprint and its mark on the planet in an era where retail is responsible for 25% of global carbon emissions, and the fashion sector alone is on track to generate 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon emissions in 2030. The environmental impact of our clothes and the climate change impact of the clothing industry as a whole cannot be ignored.
With the scale of the climate crisis, empowering consumers with insights on clothing climate change impact, the carbon emissions of fashion and about how these choices relate back to wider Science-Based Targets (SBTis) in the context of their own environmental footprint is a growing requirement when it comes to reducing their fashion footprint.
Using LCA and LESTRANGE’s Own Data to Calculate Fashion CO2 Emissions Per Wear
Using proprietary AI and machine learning technology, Vaayu calculated LESTRANGE’s impact across Scopes 1-4, such as its fashion CO2 emissions, water, waste and avoided emissions, using certified LCA methodology. The Re_Count tool used both primary and secondary data and automatically calculated the fashion CO2 emissions and impact for a selected product to demonstrate the environmental impact of clothes, by tapping into Vaayu's proprietary LCA Database and Kria Impact Modeling Engine to calculate emissions.
It then combined this with live and interactive customer inputs relating to the chosen product’s use phase and end-of-life treatment and leveraged LESTRANGE’s own cradle-to-gate life cycle data — the carbon impact of a product from the moment it's produced to the moment it enters the store — to provide an accurate, activity-based fashion product carbon emissions footprint assessment that encompasses impacts including CO2 emissions.
In order to be able to calculate consumer carbon footprints, Vaayu calculated a “baseline scenario” for the product use and end-of-life of the selected products, taking into account assumptions provided by LESTRANGE relating to washing, drying and wear habits and for end-of-life. The baseline scenario assumed disposal for all garments. Vaayu then used this data to be able to automatically share consumer carbon footprints with LESTRANGE’s customers via the Re_Count tool, the fashion carbon footprint calculator.
The World’s first Automated, Customer-Facing Fashion Footprint Calculator to Quantify Emissions Per Wear
To show how consumers can reduce their fashion footprint and lower the environmental impact of the clothes in their wardrobes, Vaayu developed an interactive online tool to inform and educate LESTRANGE customers on the impact of their shopping and aftercare habits. Using automated data, the fashion carbon footprint calculator Re_Count offered a new lens for customers to shop more intentionally and encourage awareness around the impact that purchases have on the planet over their lifespan, for example, the carbon emissions associated with their fashion choices.
LESTRANGE’s new fashion carbon footprint calculator helped consumers understand how they can reduce their fashion footprint for the first time. By leveraging Vaayu's proprietary LCA Database and Kria Impact Modeling Engine to release Re_Count, LESTRANGE is driving change within the fashion industry.
Providing a new customer-facing tool with granular insights on emissions per wear
Empowering carbon literacy through awareness and education
Inspiring customers to reduce emissions per wear by up to 50% in relation to wider Science-Based Targets (SBTis)
Harnessing new technologies can positively influence customer behavior. When garment life cycle emissions data is coupled with effective consumer education, it has the potential to inspire global efforts toward reducing the environmental impact associated with our clothing use and disposal.