Reboot The Earth Challenge: Fashion + Climate

My target for the SAP Reboot the Earth challenge is Fashion and Climate. My choice is based on the fact that I am studying to be an industrial engineer and that is related to the production processes such as the textile industry.

Introduction

What about 10,000 liters of water are needed to produce a kilo of cotton? No doubt this influences the fiber industry being the second most polluting in the planet. This has an unquestionable impact on fashion, since cotton cultivation represents around 30% of the fibers consumed in the world textile industry and supports the lives of 350 million people (FAO, 2018)

Visualizations & Key Insights

In the following map of places of cultivation, the averages of cotton fiber production for processing from 1994 to 2013 are observed, where China, India and the United States top the list.

Undoubtedly,  fresh water volumes  used in agriculture worldwide are abysmal and do not seem to have a tendency to decrease. In my opinion, the water management plans administered by governments and companies are not adequate, since they do not generate significant results, even the demand for water is still greater even knowing that the resource is running out.Despite this, the problem must be solved jointly by the companies and us, the conscious users, through having relevant information and a responsible attitude towards the use of the resource both in our daily consumption and the optimization of the production chain in order to minimize the water footprint.

Implementation

What if there was a platform capable of delivering information on the efforts made by the textile industry? That is the idea, to be able to monitor the progress of the companies of the United Nations alliance for sustainable fashion and for the community to generate conciousness in the face of its climate change actions.

Everything would be channeled on a page of visualizations that reports on environmental indicators of the garments being sold. This would be done through a QR code on the garment label. When decoding it, it will go to the page where, for example, the amount of water needed for the generation of this product will be indicated, added to the traditional information of the garment. All this being displayed in an attractive way through the SAP platform, comparing it with daily activities such as the use of the shower or toilet, in order to generate a better understanding to the consumer. In addition, the platform must be business friendly when it comes to upload information to the cloud.

With this, the user will have the opportunity to make comparisons of these indicators with other related companies, in order to generate  environmental awareness and consciousness with respect to excessive consumerism in clothing.

Consequently, this would cause a systematic change in the textile industry, aimed at environmentally sustainable projects causing a constant search for new ideas in the efficient use of resources as well as encouraging new generations to recycle and reduce the water footprint, positively favoring climate change.

Sources:

• http://www.fao.org/3/I8813ES/i8813es.pdf
• http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/data/query/index.html
• http://www.fao.org/faostat/es/#data/QC/visualize