Why does it take so much water to make a cloth?

The volumes of fresh water needed to manufacture our clothes are a little daunting. Especially when compared to the number of items sold each year around the world: over 100 billion.

The result is a rather staggering global consumption of water for the textile industry: according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it gulps down 93 billion cubic metres of water per year. That is about 4% of the planet's drinking water resources. Hard to visualise? We understand... Roughly speaking, remember that this is the equivalent of 37 million Olympic swimming pools every year!

This puts textiles among the sectors that consume the most "blue gold", this natural (and limited) resource that is so precious to life on earth: it comes third, just behind wheat and rice cultivation.

It should be noted that the next few decades will complicate the equation considerably: available fresh water is becoming scarcer all over the planet, while the climate is warming up. In other words, cotton fields, subject to rising temperatures, will require more water (+50% by 2030)... even though it will be increasingly scarce. Some major producers, such as China and India, are already facing a shortage of fresh water for their crops.

To give you an idea, it is estimated that, in the case of a pair of jeans, the raw material represents one third of its 'water footprint' (the total volume of water needed to produce a good or service). In this case, this means about 3,000 litres out of a total of 11,000.

Beyond the quantitative aspect, our clothes have a second major impact on water: they pollute it.

According to the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), the textile industry is responsible for 20% of water pollution worldwide. And, once again, the impact is distributed throughout the life cycle of the garment.

During the extraction of the raw material, the pollution is mainly linked to the chemicals used by the growers. Cotton, for example, is traditionally heavily treated with pesticides and heavily fertilised. These products penetrate the water cycle, contaminating groundwater and rivers.

During the manufacturing process, most of the pollution comes from a key stage already mentioned: dyeing. The clothes are first bleached, usually with bleach. Discharged into wastewater, the chlorine it contains is not biodegradable and travels in water, poisoning living beings (plants, animals, humans). As for the dyes themselves, they contain heavy metals, which are also harmful to the environment.

Finally, in terms of use, pollution is mainly generated by the cleaning of clothing made of synthetic materials (68% of world production): nylon, polyester, acrylic or elastane release plastic microparticles with each wash. Too small to be intercepted by wastewater treatment plants, they end up... in nature. It is estimated that 240,000 tonnes of plastic microparticles from synthetic textiles are dumped into the oceans every year.

According to the latest report from the World Resources Institute, one-quarter of the world’s population is now exposed to extremely high levels of water stress every year, and 50% of the population is affected for at least one month per year.

Suppliers need to use large volumes of water to manufacture DECATHLON items, and especially its textile products.
This means that DECATHLON’s business can impact the availability of resources, which is why it is essential that the company support suppliers in improving their water management.
Water shortages could also impact the company financially, which is why DECATHLON is working to set up adaptation actions for its priority climate risks. These include rising prices and a scarcity of raw materials due to the impact of water stress, as well as production interruptions due to water shortages or poor water quality.

To reduce its vulnerability in the supply chain and limit its impact on the environment, DECATHLON has been carrying out various actions with its suppliers since 2021, including the Sustainable Textile Processing project with its 30 suppliers consuming the most energy, water and chemicals.

This project eliminated the consumption of 300,000 m3 of water in 2023 (compared with 240,000 m3 in 2022).

This year, DECATHLON also inventoried water use at production sites through new questions in its audit grid. By collecting this data from suppliers, DECATHLON is able to better understand how water is being managed throughout its network. The following are measured:
- Water consumption for domestic use
- Water consumption for industrial purposes
- Recycled water quantities