LCA stands for Life Cycle Assessment, which is a methodology used to evaluate the environmental impacts of a product throughout its entire life cycle. LCA software is a tool that can be used to perform these assessments.

Overall, streamlined LCAs aim to provide a rapid and cost-effective way to assess the environmental impacts of products or systems while still maintaining a reasonable level of accuracy and reliability. By simplifying data collection, modelling, and analysis techniques, they make LCA more accessible to a broader range of users and applications. However, it's important to recognize that the level of detail and accuracy achieved in a streamlined LCA may not be sufficient for all purposes, and careful consideration should be given to the appropriateness of the approach for a given application.

The bAwear Calculator uses the ReCiPe 2016 midpoint (Hierarchist) impact assessment methods. The reported environmental impact indicators are ‘Climate change’ (referred to as ‘Global warming’ in this tool),  Fossil Resource Scarcity (referred to as ‘Energy use’ in this tool), and ‘Water use.’ Climate change quantifies the environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, contributing to global warming and its associated effects on ecosystems, climate, and human health. Fossil Resource Scarcity indicates the amount of non-renewable fossil resources used, directly (use of fuels for drying and steam generation) and indirectly (conventional electricity production). Water use quantifies the amount of water consumed or withdrawn throughout fiber production, product- or process-related activities and during use (care processes).

The reported data can be used for internal understanding and improvement of product-level environmental impacts

Overall, while streamlined LCAs can provide valuable insights and facilitate decision-making, their reliability hinges on careful consideration of scope, data quality, methodological rigor, and validation processes. It's essential to assess the suitability of a streamlined LCA approach for a specific application and to interpret the results with an understanding of its limitations and uncertainties.

The Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEF-CR) are currently under construction and not formalized, therefore there is no solution which can be PEF-CR compliant.

bAwear does not calculate chemical toxicity because the composition and behaviour of chemicals used in textile processes are largely unknown and highly variable. Chemicals in formulations are often not fully disclosed, and their reactions and transformations during processing are complex and unpredictable. Safety Data Sheets (SDS) are frequently incomplete, making it difficult to assess toxicity accurately. Additionally, eco-toxicity models require known chemical structures, which are not always available. Consequently, bAwear believes that any toxicity impact calculations would be unreliable, and potentially misleading by a factor of 10-100 times, and thus prefers not to report these impact categories.

"Powered by SimaPro" means that bAwear utilizes SimaPro's calculation engine and LCA expertise to provide credible sustainability metrics for textiles. Together, we combine over 30 years of textile sustainability and LCA experience.