At BCome, the leading platform for global fashion sustainability management, we believe that there’s only one way to practice transparency: through knowledge. Clothes don’t magically appear in stores. We give value to each of the processes that are hidden behind them. From the extraction of the raw materials to the delivery in the warehouse, our technology allows you to discover the journey that a garment has undergone until it reaches your hands.
We rely on data instead of intuition to promote a real change in the fashion industry. We challenge the brands we work with to improve their sustainable performance creating better products for the planet and the people.
Look for environmental labels and declarations that are verifiable, relevant and not misleading.
Demand that the methodology followed is always available for consultation.
Rely on methodologies that are rigorous and understandable to support sustainable claims.
Sustainability claims should cover all stages of the value chain, they must refer to the entire life cycle
At BCome we believe in integrative sustainability, what does this mean? We go beyond making environmental impact assessments, we also offer our brands the possibility of evaluating their collections performance in four impact areas:
Planet
People
Transparency
Circularity
This area assesses good practice in environmental efficiency. and the responsible use of resources.
It refers to all practices created to ensure safe and ethical work, social and animal conditions.
It covers all the created practices and the commitment to the monitoring, definition and transparency of the value chain.
This area analyzes all the practices that promote actions aimed at circular production and consumption where resource loops are closed and valuable materials are recovered.
LCA description
System boundaries
Functional unit
Background data
Impact indicators
Industry standard
Do you know what LCA stands for? This is Life Cycle Assessment, the tool whose purpose is to quantify the environmental impact of a product, process or system throughout its entire life cycle. To guarantee honest results, the methodology we follow to carry out LCAs follows the ISO 14040/14044 standards of Environmental Management and recommendations of the EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF).
We use a ‘cradle-to-gate’ approach, what does this mean? The stages included in the LCA go from the raw materials extraction to the delivery of the product in the warehouse, evaluating material processing, wet processing (coloration, print and treatment), manufacturing, transportation and packaging. Occasionally, fashion brands have difficulty collecting information from one of the stages, in this case conservative assumptions are made.
In order to standardize the results, the displayed results correspond to the production of one piece of garment (M size), one accessory, or one pair of shoes (42/ menswear, 38/ womenswear).
It’s the quality of the data that determines the accuracy of the results obtained from an LCA. To analyze and define the different data that BCome collects and produces, as well as the relation between them, we have a private sectoral database with multiple aggregated datasets from the textile and footwear sector classified by impact indicator, material group, production process, life cycle stage and country. The data is modeled on OpenLCA 1.11.0 or taken directly from the data source depending on its type. Aggregated data comes from the production site, also known as primary data, or from databases and available literature, in this case secondary data whose sources we list below:
International databases
Institutes and bodies
Other external specialized literature
Our objective is to have a global vision of the impact that an article has, therefore, our environmental assessments evaluate four impact indicators that allow us to know the product’s footprint in greater depth. Let us explain what they are, what units we use to measure them and the methodology followed in each case:
Water scarcity
Global warming
Eutrophication¹
Abiotic depletion
The results are compared to a conventional scenario based on a product of the same type, same weight, and same functionality in which the following parameters have been modified:
If you’d like to go deeper into our Life Cycle Assessment methodology, you’ll always find available our latest update.
Circular principles
System boundaries
Impact indicators
Industry standard
This methodology focuses on the circularity aspects of products. It is based on the Material Circularity Indicators methodology of the Ellen MacArthur foundation and analyses the restoration of material flows and is based on four principles:
The circularity indicators were defined to overview all circularity aspects of the product life cycle including:
The calculation of the CEI is linked with a wide diversity of sub-indicators including:
Feedstock indicators
End-of-life indicators
Life cycle waste indicators
Utility indicators
Overview indicators
To compare the circularity of the products assessed with the market average, we’ve also built a benchmark scenario where the conventional products are based on the following criteria:
Integrative approach
Best practices rated
Validation
Qualification
Our multidisciplinary vision of sustainability translates into our Eco-Score. This tool is used for evaluating the sustainable performance of a product in the four impact areas mentioned above: planet, people, transparency and circularity.
The Eco-Score evaluates the best practices implemented throughout the value chain for positive environmental, social and ethical impact, on the basis that exceeding 0% already implies a positive impact. Check here what are the practices included in the BCome Eco-Score methodology.
BCome validates all best practices declared through existing certifications and standards as well as the responsibility declaration form and the commitment declaration form.
BCome associates each best practice with a positive impact score of 5, 10 or 15 points and gives a rating by impact area. For the final qualification, the score obtained is translated into a scoring system out of 10 and ranked in five categories.
Eco-Score scoring system
Think
big
Believe in
evidence
Reject
buzzwords
Question the first
impression
Focus on what’s
important
Don’t
settle
Ask for
the truth
We believe that sustainability is not a trend, but a must. At BCome, we want to make you part of our mission to transform the fashion industry, learn to distinguish between noise and valuable information that enables the creation of more sustainable products. Share your doubts with our sustainability experts, always happy to answer your questions with transparency and honesty.
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