This report is written within the Swedish Wool Initiative project, funded by Vinnova. The project aims at increasing the competitiveness for Swedish wool and contributing to a more sustainable and circular textile industry through developing circular products based on discarded Swedish wool. Apart from project leader Axfoundation, project partners include actors from the textile industry, supply chain as well as from research and innovation. The report describes the results of a working package focusing on the sustainability of Swedish wool.
The study aimed at looking into methodological choices applied in sustainability assessments of sheep and wool production, as well as to investigate results of sustainability impact assessments of the production. Based on this, the study aimed to highlight potentially missing aspects in previous assessments as well as to compare the impacts of Swedish production in relation to production in other countries.
For studies assessing wool at farm-gate, a functional unit of per kg of greasy wool was found to be a common choice. Using such functional unit has been criticized for not relating to the function of the fiber which for comparison should be expanded to include its quality and durability. For the reviewed assessments of woolen garments, these were commonly assessed from a cradle to grave perspective, with a functional unit including a definition of a specific weight as well as lifetime, which is preferable as this makes it possible to compare the function of different garments.
Concerning handling multi-functionality of production systems, most studies were found to apply one or several allocation strategies to distribute the environmental burdens between the by-products. The choice of allocation factors was found to vary substantially between the reviewed studies which had large implications on overall results. Studies covering Swedish production were found to apply a low or no allocation to wool, due to the low economic revenues of wool. In comparison, studies covering the production in other countries were found to use higher economic allocation factors. This was explained by a higher level of specialization of wool production in combination with larger extent of wool takencare of, which increase its economic revenues and thus allocation factors.
On comparing the environmental impact categories and indicators recommendedby frameworks and the ones currently applied in the literature, large overlapswere found. Overall, all environmental impact categories recommended by the reviewed frameworks were found to be used in the studied literature, although no single study was found to cover all aspects in either of the frameworks.
The indicators recommended by the studied frameworks were not always applied by the reviewed studies. For example, the impact category of land use and land system change is commonly investigated through assessing overall land use, but is recommended to include indicators on soil health by e.g. the Product Environmental Footprint guidelines.
In the workshop with actors from different parts of the supply-chain of Swedish wool, environmental perspectives given top priority included climate impact, chemical use in production, biodiversity and resource efficiency. Climate impact and resource use were found to be among the most applied indicators in the literature. Chemical use in production and biodiversity were on the other hand rarely assessed. Thus, future studies assessing the environmental sustainability of Swedish wool could ideally include these aspects. Few studies covering social and economic dimensions were found. The participants in the workshop highlighted animal welfare and profitability among top priorities of social and economic perspectives to be included in a sustainability assessment of Swedish wool.
No conclusions could be drawn on the climate impact of Swedish sheep or wool production systems compared to other countries, as the studies vary in analyzed production systems, as well as methodological choices, e.g. regarding the functional units and impact assessment method chosen. However, considering the low allocation factors assigned to Swedish wool in the identified studies, this result in substantially lower climate impact for wool up to farm-gate, compared to the results reported by other studies.
Swedish sheep farming has been highlighted to impact positively on several of the Swedish Environmental Objectives, e.g. through grazing animals sustaining biodiversity conservation of threatened species in Swedish semi-natural pastures. Another often lifted benefit for Swedish agriculture is the potential carbon sequestration due to grass ley production. However, several studies were found tohighlight the same attributes to sheep and wool production in other countries worldwide, as the farming systems to a large extent are extensive pastoral-based systems. Regarding other potential benefits often highlighted for Swedish production of sheep and wool, these include animal welfare regulations. On comparing Swedish regulations to legislation and literature for other production countries, potential added values from Swedish production compared to other countries were found, e.g. with regards to use of veterinary antibiotics and medical interventions.