The results of the study point to importance of multi-directionalapproach where incremental interventions at different life cyclephases of a product lead to overall improvement of product’ssustainability.LCA study described in the manuscript was not con-strued as a validation of any production strategy but rather asa mechanism to evaluate different production and consumptionstrategies with the intent of improving knowledge and efficiencyin terms of environmental consequences of products. Besides theobvious outcomes of chemical fertilizer elimination such as dra-matic decrease in AEP, several aspects stand out; results showthat diesel fuel consumption by agricultural machinery in thecultivation and harvesting phase, in addition to use of agrochem-icals, is responsible for many environmental impacts from thisstage, particularly global warming and these impacts increase ascrop productivity decreases.
Improvingenergy efficiency and increasing the share of renewable sourcesin fabric production and processing facilities and economic use ofelectricity in household would thus further increase the environ-mental performance of Eco T-shirts.The success of improving sustainability of T-shirts and similartextile apparel depends strongly on human factor across the entirevalue chain.
Therefore, replacing diesel fuel withbiodiesel in the machinery, preferably produced in an on-sitefacility from agricultural wastes and residues, would theoreti-cally further improve sustainability of the final product providedthat biodiesel itself is produced from sustainable feedstock. Elec-tric power consumption is another prominent contributor to GWPalong with other environmental impact categories across all lifecycle stages of the products, most notably in use phase