Advancing Organisational Life Cycle Assessment in the Fashion Industry: Strategies for Sustainable Corporate Practices

The fashion industry, particularly fast fashion, is one of the most environmentally destructive sectors, accounting for 10% of global carbon emissions and consuming ap-proximately 93 billion cubic meters of water annually. Textile production alone is responsible for 20% of global clean water pollution due to dyeing and finishing pro-cesses. With over 150 billion garments produced each year, the industry generates vast amounts of waste, with 87% of discarded textiles in the EU either incinerated or sent to landfills. This paper examines the environmental impact of fash-ion, assessing corporate sustainability practices through methodologies such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Organisational Life Cycle Assessment (OLCA). A de-tailed case study of an Italian apparel manufacturer is presented, evaluating its environmental footprint over a one-year period using the SimaPro LCA tool and the Ecoinvent database. The findings highlight critical areas for improvement, particularly in resource consumption, emissions reduc-tion, and waste management. Recommendations focus on increasing resource efficiency, adopting renewable ener-gy, and ensuring transparent sustainability reporting to combat greenwashing. By identifying data-driven solu-tions, this paper contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable fashion, offering practical strategies for re-ducing the industry’s environmental footprint and sup-porting long-term sustainability goals.