Dutch researchers developed a tool that calculates the “invisible” tab a garment runs up across its entire lifecycle, considering fiber production and end-of-life as well as the hidden costs incurred by garment workers and the planet throughout any given garment’s lifecycle.
After three years of development, sustainable research organization Vito and fashion-centric nonprofit Flanders DC launched the Trust Cost Calculator (TCC): what the Belgian duo calls the fashion industry’s first instrument to compute the full societal impact of a garment. The online (and free) self-assessment tool calculates and compares the total, holistic impact of the inputter’s closet. By measuring ecological, environmental and social ramifications, the tool makes the “true cost” of a garment “visible and objectively measurable.”
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“The apparel value chain is highly complex and globalized, with a lot of different dimensions coming into play when it comes to sustainability,” Tom Duhoux, circular economy researcher at Vito, told Sourcing Journal. “Actors in the field often only have limited information at hand and find it hard to make trade-offs, balancing social aspects, sustainable raw materials sourcing and production practices, cost and quality aspects. Furthermore, they often lack the background or knowledge to interpret lifecycle assessment results in units unintuitive to them. The true cost tool aims to formulate an answer to this.”
A “key feature” of the calculator is the integration of financial, environmental and social dimensions, expressing the external costs associated with the lifecycle of clothing in monetary terms. The TCC considers the entire lifecycle of a garment, measuring the impact from production to transport, use and waste processing.
“Along the textile value chain, many costs—fabrics, labor, transportation—are incurred to produce a garment. This is the economic cost of a garment,” Simon Gryspeert, project manager sustainability at Flanders DC, said. “However, during the garment’s lifecycle, environmental and social impacts are generated as well, such as—among many others—water pollution or child labor. These impacts can be considered externalities, as the actors in the value chain do not pay for the burdens caused by these impacts.”
The TCC does this calculating by converting these “invisible” external costs into their monetary equivalent using a method developed by Vito. While there are many ways to determine what is or isn’t an external cost, the TCC builds on the True Price Foundation’s monetization approach. The global movement’s method finds a product’s market price. It adds the social and environmental impact to then calculate what it would cost to remediate or repair the damage done to a state as good—or better—than if the damage was never done.
“We were not looking to reinvent the wheel but rather build upon the valuable work already done by others and align with what’s already out there,” Anse Smeets, project manager of circular economy at Vito, said. “The True Cost tool should include both environmental and social costs and the geographical scope should be global; the most recent method fulfilling these criteria is the ‘True Price’ method.”
The difference between the retail price and the tool’s “True Cost” is known as the True Cost Gap. The TCC helps users understand where those costs come from and how they are broken down. For example, the tool determines which stage(s) of production are the most harmful and where the biggest improvements can be made. The longer a garment is worn, the lower the True Cost per wear will be. Plus, the total True Cost includes the internal direct cost, which is what one pays to produce the garment. Thus, the “true cost gap” represents the environmental and social impacts across its lifecycle.
“A first step in internalizing and restricting these burdens is making these externalities tangible. This is realized via monetizing impacts at the garment level, resulting in the True Cost of a garment over its entire lifecycle,” Gryspeert said. “The difference between the economic cost and the True Cost of a garment is the True Cost Gap. Or, put differently, the true cost gap is the cost of the environmental and social impacts.”
To calculate the social impact of a garment—such as the working conditions in the countries where those pieces are produced—the TCC makes a cost-based “impact assessment” specific to the given country and sector.
“The concept of worker hours expresses the amount of working time required to generate $1 of output,” Smeets explained. “The impact categories currently taken into account are child labor, gender discrimination, forced labor, fair wages, worker health and safety and freedom of association.”
While developed for fashion professionals, anyone can access the tool to understand—and therefore reduce—the environmental and social impact of their individual collections. Granted, the tool is high-level, requiring access to information a shopper likely won’t have (like the cost of confection per garment or a breakdown of sales channels) on hand. The tool would best be used by those within the industry, such as designers and buyers, but also students and consultants.
Those users can compare and adjust different lifecycle scenarios, effectively zooming out to see the full picture of their purchasing choices. For example, one can calculate the “true cost” of a pair of jeans and then compare it against various adjustments to see which option achieves the best score.
In addition to its “broad analytical capabilities,” the calculator offers practical design guidelines for brands and manufacturers. Those guidelines provide details on granular material composition such as blends, trims and additives, helping brands make greener choices from the design phase onward.
The TCC was developed as part of the System Circularity & Innovative Recycling of Textiles (SCIRT) project within the framework of the European Union-funded Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program. The project received funding from H2020, which aims to accelerate the industry’s circular transition through technological innovations in recycling, design and production practices—under grant No. 101003906.
