The Data Squiggles
Nervous excitement releasing my first impact summary
Last week was a week! Mostly full of things I’m proud to have accomplished, even if it was a little bit of a challenge. So you may hear from me twice this week, as I’m excited to share a few things with you all. Let’s get into the juicy parts!
I completed my first two impact summary reports. No, they are not long or super in-depth, hence the summary part (or more like highlights). However, nonetheless, I finally completed one for my brand. And here are the results:
Textile Reduction: The brand collected a total of 224.8 lbs of clothing, fabric, and scrap in 2025. Majority of that came from clothing donations, amounting to 154.5 lbs. Some of the pieces I received, I knew I wouldn’t use to redesign with and donated them to Dress for Success Cincinnati and Matthew 25.
Carbon Footprint: This is where things got a little sticky; and, honestly, I may have slightly overcalculated it. But I’d rather be on the high end in order to correct my calculations and actually be below the number than to undercalculate the brand’s impact. For your interest, I also did not calculate the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions or get into the research to do so, thus resulting in only the CO2 equivalent. I also didn’t add in the complete energy matrix, which is highly complex in Cincinnati, where the mix of energy sources can come from North Carolina as much as it can from a station an hour away. So, I broke out the brand’s activities into Scopes 1 through 3 with Scope 2 emissions being the highest by 36 kg. [For some added clarity, Scope 1 emissions are derived from direct and immediate activities. This would include my production, immediate energy use, and material use. Scope 2 emissions are added on top of Scope 1 to include the energy matrix/source, material sourcing, and logistics (typically one of the heavier scopes). Scope 3 encompasses the first two as well as the end-of-life stage for any products in the stream, if you will. Therefore, what is going to happen to a garment and how much energy will it take to dispose or reuse it.] For Am.A-line’s analysis: Scope 1 yielded 65.2 kg of CO2 eq; Scope 2 - 5,127 kg of CO2 e; and, Scope 3 - 5,091 kg of CO2 eq.
Energy Analysis: As mentioned above, I did not acquire all of the information needed to conduct the analysis for Scopes 2 and 3. However, my energy analysis study surrounded my equipment and my average monthly usage with a result of 136.3 kWh.
To all of my ESG report managers, power to you for finding and having the data to calculate the impacts! Same to all of the lifecycle assessors out there!
So this was just one of two of the summaries I worked on last week, but I’m really proud of myself for taking a stab at it, especially for my brand. Practice makes perfect, right? Or more so, practice can only make things easier and you get better along the way. So don’t worry, this won’t be my last one by far.
The hardest part for me was the lack of information or difficulty in finding the specifics I was looking for. Not for lack of trying though. Yes, some assumptions can be made, however, I wanted to be as accurate as I possibly could. So take it easy on ya girl lol. (Feedback and messages are always welcome, especially when working towards becoming more proficient.)
But for now, I’ll save the other juicy bits for later this week during our “regular scheduled programming” (haha!).
Until then, stay inquisitive!