Can sustainability pay off? Engineering an environmentally improved and economically viable transformation for a heated-wearables e-commerce company. : An Environmental Engineering assessment of operational improvements, market response, and economic feasibility.

Sammanfattning

This degree project assessed whether environmental improvements in a small heated-wearables e-commerce company can be environmentally meaningful and economically viable. The case company was Sunen Sp. z o.o., operating through the Glovii brand, which sells heated textile products containing electronics. The study combined a screening life cycle assessment, company carbon-structure logic, customer questionnaire data, scenario analysis and a screening-level economic assessment. The model was based on a one-year company dataset covering 150 SKUs, 5,769 units sold, 30 destination countries, 1,994 outbound shipments, 94 parsed returned units, warehouse utility data and operational activities. Climate change impact was reported in kg CO₂e and aggregated at product, life-cycle-stage and annual company levels. The calculated annual company footprint was 106.30 t CO₂e/year, while the retained sold-product baseline was 71.21 t CO₂e. The weighted mean product footprint was 14.18 kg CO₂e per sold unit, and the weighted annualised footprint was 3.47 kg CO₂e per service-year. The dominant hotspots were materials and components at 37.91 t CO₂e/year, inbound freight to Poland at 32.79 t CO₂e/year, business travel at 9.80 t CO₂e/year and use-phase charging at 8.83 t CO₂e/year. The three largest contributors represented 75.7% of the annual footprint, showing that the company’s environmental impact is driven by a small number of major levers rather than many equally important sources. Within the materials stage, electronics, batteries and other small parts contributed 24.04 t CO₂e, confirming that heated wearables should be treated as hybrid textile-electronics products. The customer questionnaire received 135 responses and showed that durability and longevity were the most valued greener product element, selected by 42% of respondents, while 73% expressed interest in a battery second-life or return programme. However, 67% rejected a 20% price premium, indicating that sustainability interest does not automatically justify a high green surcharge. Scenario results showed that the strongest practical option was a combined near-term package, reducing the annual footprint from 106.30 to 94.52 t CO₂e/year, equal to 11.78 t CO₂e/year or 11.08%. The study concludes that sustainability can potentially pay off for heated wearables, but only when interventions target measured hotspots, preserve product performance and are supported by credible data. The results are suitable for internal prioritisation and decision-making, but not for verified public product claims without further supplier-specific data.