Abstract
Purpose Growing demand for sustainable textiles has renewed interest in natural fibers such as alpaca. So far, sustainability assessments for those fibers are scarce. Methods Hence, this study assessed environmental impacts of an alpaca fiber sweater across its whole life cycle (farm, factory and distribution (F&D), use, end-of-life) using life cycle assessment. The main goal was to assess the current status quo, identify hotspots and, based on these, to develop farm‑phase improvement pathways. The functional unit was defined as one sweater weighing 303 g. Economic allocation was applied to deal with multi-outputs present in the farm and F&D phases. The farm phase takes place in Peru, as does the production of the sweaters, which are then shipped to Europe, where the use and end-of-life take place. Environmental Footprint version 3.1 was used as impact assessment method. Results and discussion The farm phase was identified as one of the primary contributors to environmental impacts, particularly in categories such as Climate Change expressed as Global Warming Potential (GWP). Improvement scenarios for the farm phase revealed that a 10% reduction in the enteric fermentation emission factor could significantly improve environmental performance. Increasing the shearing rate by 10% can reduce GWP by over 10%. Conclusions The study emphasizes the need for high-quality, region-specific data to improve the accuracy of the assessment. Overall, critical insights into the environmental performance of alpaca fiber and improvement strategies for enhancing the sustainability of an alpaca supply chain are provided.