Seamless has released its first environmental impact report, 'Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry 2024', marking an important step toward understanding, and ultimately reducing, the impact of our clothes.
Using lifecycle assessment (LCA) principles, the report provides a national estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions and water use generated across the clothing value chain, from production through to end of life.
As Australia’s national clothing product stewardship scheme, Seamless is focused on building a system that keeps clothing out of landfill while cutting emissions and water use across the supply chain. This report, alongside the 2024 National Clothing Benchmark for Australia, sets a transparent baseline that will help track progress toward a circular clothing industry and net zero.
Download 'Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry 2024' here.
The climate cost of clothing
In 2024, Australia’s clothing value chain produced 14.5 million tonnes of CO₂e, which is equivalent to the annual electricity use of about 4.8 million Australian households. On an individual level, the average Australian was responsible for around 530 kg CO₂e from clothing-related activities. That’s roughly the electricity used in a home over two months, or the emissions from driving more than 3,600 kilometres in a petrol car, further than the distance from Melbourne to Perth.
More than half of these emissions, 7.1 million tonnes CO₂e, came from producing and transporting imported clothing. This is the stage of the value chain with the greatest opportunity for reduction, through measures such as cutting overproduction, improving manufacturing efficiency and shifting more freight from air to sea.
Uncovering clothing’s water use
The report also highlights the clothing sector’s significant water use. In 2024, it consumed 1.8 billion cubic metres of water, the equivalent of 720,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. For the average Australian, that translates to 66m³ of water linked to clothing purchased, used and disposed of in 2024. That’s the same as 132,000 half-litre bottles of water, or around 440 bathtubs per person each year.
Around 80% of the sector’s water use came from the production and transport of new imported clothing, amounting to 1.5 billion cubic metres.
Why change is essential
The findings make it clear that Australia must accelerate its shift from a linear “take-make-waste” model to a circular clothing economy. Reducing the environmental impact of what we wear will require coordinated, system-wide action, from designing clothing to last and reducing over production, to improving production efficiency, expanding repair, reuse and recycling pathways, and changing how we buy, use and pass on clothing.
All of these steps will be essential to creating a more circular, lower-impact clothing future for Australia.
Download 'Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry 2024' here.
