What is the carbon footprint of elastane (spandex) yarn?
Elastane is a polyurethane fibre spun from petrochemical raw materials, so purchased chemicals are most of its footprint. Your own share is spinning, solvent recovery and heat setting energy. A garment with 5 percent elastane carries that share of the fibre's footprint.
Where it sits
- Scope 3: polyols, diisocyanates and solvent purchased.
- Scope 1 and 2: spinning, drying and solvent recovery energy.
- Solvent losses: count any that are greenhouse gases; most are not.
Blends
Weight the fibre figures by blend: 95 percent cotton and 5 percent elastane means 0.05 kg of elastane per kg of fabric.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads the plant's electricity bills (CEA grid factor 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, CO2 Baseline Database version 21.0) and fuel invoices (IPCC 2006 defaults) into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, the plant-level input to a per-unit figure. Bought-in materials go to the supplier evidence trail; product reports are self-declared drafts.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, CEA CO2 Baseline Database
Last reviewed 2026-10-22.