Yarn Carbon Footprint

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Hypothetical Yarn Co.

This is a case study for a hypothetical yarn company which we'll call "Hypothetical Yarn Co."

Hypothetical sources its merino fleece from Peru.

Every year, Hypothetical ships 4,000 pounds of raw fleece from Peru to a mill in Iowa for processing.

At the mill, the 4,000 pounds of raw fleece is turned into 2,000 pounds of finished yarn.

That 2,000 pounds of finished yarn is shipped to the distributor's warehouse in Kansas.

From Kansas, 10 kilograms of yarn (100 skeins of 100 grams each) is shipped to a yarn store in New York for sale.


Segment Details Footprint per pound of finished yarn1 Balance
Sheep load Each kilogram of raw fleece leaves the farm with a carbon footprint of: 17.79 grams. .16 kg .16 kg
First journey Shipping 4,000 pounds of fleece from Peru to Iowa (4,000 miles) by air freight. 4.8 kg 4.96 kg
Second journey Shipping 2,000 pounds of finished yarn from Iowa to Kansas (500 miles) by semi truck. .006 kg 4.966 kg
Third Journey Shipping 22 pounds of yarn from Kansas to New York (1,500 miles) by air freight. .90 kg 5.866 kg

Thus, each 100-gram skein of yarn from Hypothetical Yarn Co. arrives on the yarn store shelves with a carbon footprint of 5.866 kilograms of greenhouse gases (mostly CO2, but with a bit of methane from the sheep farts).

  1. Remember that each pound of finished yarn is equivalent to two pounds of raw fleece. When the fleece is transformed into finished yarn, the fleece's carbon footprint is therefore doubled.