The Seamless Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry report measures the greenhouse gas emissions and water use linked to Australia’s clothing value chain in a single year. Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, the report tracks environmental impacts across the life of clothing, from production and transport through to use and disposal.
Globally, the clothing industry has a significant environmental footprint. It is responsible for around 10% of global carbon emissions (UNEP, 2018) and consumes an estimated 93 billion cubic metres of water each year (UNCTAD, 2019). High production and consumption rates, combined with a largely linear system, continue to drive these impacts.
To better understand the scale of the challenge in Australia, Seamless developed a national benchmark for the environmental impact of clothing. The report combines Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling with national data on clothing imports, manufacturing, use and disposal to estimate the total greenhouse gas emissions and water use associated with Australia’s clothing value chain. It also explores opportunities to reduce these impacts across the sector.
What our first report revealed
Seamless released its first report, ‘Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry 2024’, in 2025. The findings provide an important baseline for understanding, and reducing, the impact of clothing in Australia.
The climate cost of clothing
In 2024, Australia’s clothing value chain generated 14.5 million tonnes of CO₂e emissions, equivalent to the annual electricity use of around 4.8 million Australian households. On average, each Australian was responsible for around 530 kg of clothing-related emissions. 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 highlights a major opportunity to reduce emissions through actions such as reducing overproduction, improving manufacturing efficiency and shifting freight from air to sea.
Clothing’s water use
The report also found that Australia’s clothing value chain used 1.8 billion cubic metres of water in 2024, equal to around 720,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. On average, each Australian was linked to 66 cubic metres of water use through the clothing they purchased, used and disposed of during the year. That’s equivalent to 132,000 half-litre bottles of water, or around 440 bathtubs per person each year.
Around 80% of this water use came from the production and transport of imported clothing, which accounted for 1.5 billion cubic metres of water consumption.
Read the Seamless Environmental Impact of the Australian Clothing Industry 2024.
