The environmental footprint behind home textiles and PU foam
Home textiles and polyurethane (PU) foam are part of our everyday lives, from bed sheets, tablecloths, towels and curtains to mattresses, pillows and insulation panels. In 2022, each EU citizen consumed an average of 7.95 kg of household textiles. Across the 2010-2022 period, the annual average was 7.42 kg per person, illustrating the sustained scale of household textile consumption in the EU. For PU foam, approximately 4 million tonnes of flexible and rigid PU foams were produced in the EMEA region in 2020. These figures illustrate the widespread use of these products and the large quantities of materials and resources required throughout their production and use. As a result, their life cycles are associated with a range of environmental impacts, from raw material extraction and manufacturing to use and end-of-life. Understanding and quantifying these impacts requires a systematic approach to environmental assessment.
How are the environmental impacts of these products currently assessed?
There are multiple ways to communicate the environmental performance of a certain product. In the market, we usually find statements such as “made with 50% recycled materials”, “a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions” or “uses 50% less water”. However, these claims may refer to different environmental aspects, reference products or calculation approaches, making it difficult to understand the overall environmental performance of a product or to compare different products in a consistent way. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides a systematic framework for assessing the environmental impacts associated with a product throughout its life cycle. LCA is already being applied to products in these sectors. For example, recent studies have assessed the environmental performance of homewear products and bedding products containing PU foam.
However, conducting an LCA involves a number of methodological choices, including the selection of the functional unit and system boundaries, the assumptions made and the choice of data sources or databases. These methodological choices can influence the results and make comparisons between studies more challenging. As an example, when performing an LCA of bed sheets, the context of use (e.g. whether they are used in a hotel or in a household) could affect assumptions such as washing frequency or the drying method, or even the functional unit (the use of a bed sheet over a defined number of uses). In the case of a mattress, the system boundaries could determine whether the production of the foam or its raw materials, such as isocyanates, is included in the assessment. The assumed lifetime could also affect the results. This highlights the need for a more harmonised approach to assessing the environmental performance of products. At the European level, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method provides a common framework for assessing the environmental performance of products across their life cycle.
From LCA to PEF: Why do we need PEFCRs?
Building on ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, which are the international standards that define the principles, framework and guidelines for conducting LCA, the PEF method provides a more harmonised approach to assessing the environmental performance of products throughout their life cycle. It introduces more specific methodological requirements, reducing methodological flexibility and helping to improve the consistency and comparability of results.
However, applying the PEF method consistently across different product categories requires additional rules that reflect the specific characteristics of each category. For this reason, Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) are developed to establish consistent and specific rules for calculating and comparing the PEF results within a product category. Currently, there are already PEFCRs for product categories such as apparel and footwear, cut flowers and potted plants and synthetic turf. Other PEFCRs are under development, including those for marine fish and tourism, while others are under revision, including beer, pasta or pet food. The PEFCRs are drafted and updated by a Technical Secretariat, involving relevant stakeholders from the corresponding sector.
GREENSPIRE: Developing PEFCRs for home textiles and PU foam
GREENSPIRE will start by reviewing the state of the art of LCA/PEF methodologies, identifying gaps in knowledge and data and examining circularity needs in order to select relevant socio-economic and environmental indicators for the home textile and PU foam sectors. Building on this baseline assessment, GREENSPIRE will develop the PEFCRs for these two categories of products following a parallel process. First, the project will establish the Technical Secretariat that will be in charge of the PEFCRs development. Then, representative products from the two categories will be selected. The two PEFCR drafts will be developed and validated through two public consultation rounds and an independent panel review, while LCA studies supporting the PEFCRs will also be performed. Following approval by the European Commission, the final version of the PEFCRs will be published together with sub-category datasets. Beyond developing the PEFCRs, GREENSPIRE will also support their practical implementation by developing assessment tools and data infrastructure, engaging stakeholders through co-creation activities, evaluating the PEFCRs and providing training and guidelines to facilitate their uptake.
If you want to learn more about environmental impact methodologies for the textiles and PU sector, don’t forget to stay tuned to GREENSPIRE channels!
