A tee shirt is 7 kg of CO2 equivalent on average.
Carbon footprint of different types of tee shirt
Wikicarbone, BaseImpact. Each dot is the carbon footprint of a tee shirt made of a given material and manufactured in a given country.
Most frequently used materials for tee shirts are cotton, polyester, viscose.
The average carbon footprint of a tee shirt is 7 kg CO2 equivalent (kgCO2e). The lowest is Coton recycled made in Vietnam (5 kgCO2e), the highest is Coton made in India (10 kgCO2e).
50% of the carbon footprint comes from Wet treatment.
Share of carbon footprint per steps
Wikicarbone, BaseImpact, PEFCR
Manufacturing a tee shirt involves different processes such as Knitting & Weaving, Wet treatment or Confectioning.
Those processes require about 10 Kilowatt-hour (Kwh)of energy. That is where the bulk of carbon emissions come from.
A tee shirt made in India has a carbon footprint 1.5x higher than a tee shirt made in Vietnam.
Carbon footprint of a tee shirt per country of manufacture
Wikicarbone, BaseImpact, PEFCR. Average carbon footprint for a tee shirt depending on the country where it was manufactured
Countries rely more or less on fossil fuel to produce their electricity. That impacts the product carbon footprint.
For instance a tee shirt manufactured in India has a carbon footprint 1.5x higher than a tee shirt manufactured in Vietnam.
Using recycled materials emits less carbon.
Carbon footprint of a tee shirt per material
Wikicarbone, BaseImpact, PEFCR. Average carbon footprint for a tee shirt depending on the material it is made of.
A tee shirt made of recycled materials tends to consume less energy and emits less carbon than a tee shirt made of non-recycled materials.
The difference is most notable between cotton and recycled cotton.