The Preferred Fiber and Materials Matrix (PFMM) of Textile Exchange has been made publicly available for the first time.
- The Matrix gives owners of standards systems a way to view their performance in a standardised way and toward a shared “direction of travel” for beneficial impact, while also helping brands to make informed material sourcing decisions,
- The PFMM is designed to assess the performance of standard systems within a material category. It works to show what is covered—and what is not—within various standards.
The Context: According to the EU Commission, it is estimated that over 80% of all product-related environmental impacts are determined during the design phase, making material choices critical in reducing environmental impact.
- The PFMM assesses the performance of different sustainability standards within material categories, across 80 qualitive and quantitative indicators
- Standards systems are assessed across core impact areas, including climate, water, chemicals, land, resource use and waste, biodiversity, human rights, animal welfare, and initiative integrity, which measures the robustness and governance of a given standard system.
- All standards systems in the tool (sorted A-Z under each material type) are assessed on a 100-point scale and divided across five performance levels, from zero to four.
KEY UPDATES: Some highlights:
- The refreshed methodology has added indicators for human rights and initiative integrity, as well as updated content for chemical management.
- Subject matter expert organisations were engaged to support the methodology updates, including Ergon Associates for the redevelopment of the human rights indicators; NewForesight for the redevelopment of the initiative integrity indicators; and ZDHC for the chemical management indicators.
- The user interface has been updated for improved usability, including separating paired standard systems (such as EU Organic Regulation and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), enabling users to view the performance of each. This also allows users to better understand how standards can be paired, to gain greater coverage of environmental and social practices across supply chain tiers.
- The overall performance score has been removed, encouraging users to focus on the scoring within impact areas.
- The methodology incorporates both qualitative and quantitative indicators, providing a holistic understanding of environmental and social performance. However, more work is needed to ensure relevant impact data is available for standard systems.
What's Next: Textile Exchange is working with its members to fund high-quality LCA studies to help fill critical quantitative data gaps.
- The next phase of PFMM development will focus on expanding the number of standards systems assessed within the cotton material category.
- Beyond this, the focus in 2024 will be on making the tool applicable to a broader range of initiatives, including branded fibres and other types of sustainability programmes.
