Product Scoring Guide

June 10, 2024

Trace’s Product Rating Methodology

As you can see, it’s complicated. So, while the Trace team is working to get detailed data around CO2 emissions for products in our shop, we have created the Trace Material Rating scale to give our brands and customers a sense for how much the garment contributes to CO2 emissions on a relative basis, based on the material from which it’s made. 

Trace considers 4 main factors in rating material for garments: 

  1. Virgin vs recycled

  2. Natural vs synthetic

  3. Recyclable vs not

  4. Biodegradable vs not

Virgin vs Recycled, Natural vs Synthetic

As discussed above, the first two factors contribute to CO2 emissions the most. And while there is a lot of nuance in calculating specific CO2 emissions, for the most part we can safely assume that: 

  • Recycled is better than virgin

  • Natural fiber is better than synthetic fiber

You’ll notice that a lot of our brands upcycle fabric. This can look like: 

  • Taking dead stock from clothing factories that would otherwise have not been sold

  • Taking off-cuts from clothing factors that would otherwise have been thrown away

  • Taking finished garments that would otherwise have been thrown away and remaking new items from this fabric

Other brands explicitly call out that their fabric is made from recycled fiber.  This means the fibers were taken from existing garments and remade into new fiber from which new garments are made. 

We consider all of this “recycled.” And we believe that NOT starting with newly produced fabric significantly reduces relative environmental impact. If you’re having a hard time imagining this, consider all of the donated clothing items that end up on the beaches of Ghana. Now imagine if even some of those clothing items were repurposed into new items instead. That would reduce emissions related to growing and producing new fibers and fabric, AND would reduce the number of items that have to biodegrade. 

Recyclability and Biodegradability

Recyclability considers whether the fabric can be broken down and recycled into new fibers for “new” material. Material made from certain blended fibers are NOT recyclable. And while many companies are developing new techniques to recycle blended fibers, some of these techniques can be energy and chemical intensive. Pure fibers (e.g. 100% cotton) are much easier to recycle into reusable fiber. 

Side note about downcycling: with “downcycling” the fibers are used for a purpose other than clothing, for example insulation, or these really cool FabBricks. Ideally though, the garment fibers stay “in the loop” for garments. So we prefer recyclability. 

Biodegradability inevitably, fibers will wear out (hopefully not too quickly, if you’re taking proper care of the item). When the item is truly at the end of its lifecycle, ideally it can decompose quickly and “return to the earth.” Natural fibers biodegrade much faster than synthetic fibers, by a factor of 10 or more.

Of course, there are trade-offs between fabric biodegradability and durability (see: Item Lifecycle). And in many cases it makes sense to blend fibers to get the best of both worlds (sustainability of natural fibers with the durability of synthetics). It’s always important to invest in garments that you will own and use for a long time, but especially so if the garment contains synthetic fibers. And when we say “a long time,” we’re thinking: your whole life and maybe that of your children and grandchildren :) (Stay tuned for our closet scoring system where the number of years you’ve owned something earns you major Trace points).

Other Factors

Our rating system doesn’t currently incorporate all of the factors we discussed above, like worker conditions or how chemical-intensive the dyeing and finishing process is. We share as much information about these factors as we—and our brands—know under the “Fabric” and “Origin” headings of each of the products in our shop. 

We don’t have all the answers, but by being conscious of the implications of different types of material, you can make the best choice for your needs AND the environment. You can see the complete list of materials with their Trace Material Rating in the table below. In our shop, you’ll see the Trace Material Rating listed for each product, under the Trace heading. 

Trace Material Rating Table Snippet

Some examples: 

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