All data for 2023.
Total GHG Emissions for India (CO2eq): 3.4 billion tons.
Total Textile & Apparel Industry Emissions:
- Total emissions: 65 million tons (CO2eq)
- Proportion of total GHG emissions: approx 2%
So, the Indian textile & apparel industry, according to my estimate, emits about 2% of India’s total GHG emissions. Not substantial, but not insignificant either.
By the way, most of the 3% of emissions come from upstream emissions, mainly from cotton cultivation and polymer production.
India produces about 5.5 million tons of cotton and 3.1 million tons of polyester fiber every year (2023 data). Using data points for CO2 emissions for these (see support data at the end), we get a total of about 35 million tons for the production of these. Adding all the less prominent fibers – nylon, jute etc., we add 10% to this, and the total upstream emissions will be about 40 million tons.
Emissions data for the entire textile production sector are not available, but if we use the global metric that 2/3rd of all emissions for textiles are upstream, then textile production in India should be emitting about 20-25 million tons.
I thus estimate that the total textile industry emissions are about 65 million tons per year – not accounting for emissions from energy and water use during the phase of textiles or from it post-use/disposal phase.
Hope this is useful.
If you have queries on this, please send a note to narsi@eai.in and I will try my best to help! – Narsi, EAI
Support data and other highlights
6-7% – global estimate
Data points:
Carbon footprint of polyester: approx 6t CO2/ t of fiber; India total polyester production: about 3.2 million tons in 2023; so, 19.2 million tons CO2 emissions, LCA basis
Carbon footprint of cotton: 2.9 t CO2/t of fiber; in 2023, India produced about 5.5 million tons of cotton, so about 16 million tons of CO2 emissions
India’s textile industry contributes to 2% of country’s GDP; assuming that implies double the emissions in %, 3-4% does appear like the right estimate
I estimate 25 million tons of CO2 emissions from the scope 1 & 2 for the entire Indian textile industry; this would be about 0.7%. As upstream contributes to about 2/3rd emissions for textile sector, the total for all scopes would be about 2% https://www.tlr-journal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/TLR_2022_13_GUNTURU.pdf
Details of textile industry energy savings in Parliament – https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1711/AU4626.pdf?source=pqals – savings of about 1.5 million tons in CO2 emissions in 168 large textile units
One source says cotton cultivation globally produces about 220 million tons of CO2eq per annum (source); don’t see how this ties in with the 2.9 t/ton of cotton emission benchmark that seems to be accepted, as the world produced ony about 25 million tons of cotton in 2023.
This study puts polyester production emissions per ton to be much higher than 6t/t of PET, more like 10 tons! – https://oecotextiles.blog/2011/01/19/estimating-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-fabric/
Also, there could be some things we have not included: Nylon production process emits N2O, so we need to figure out how much that could be! – https://oecotextiles.blog/2011/01/19/estimating-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-fabric/
