Media Releases

Wool, a naturally carbon

friendly fibre
Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Live with wool and reduce your carbon footprint

Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) today launched

the Wool Carbon Alliance, a group of Australian and international wool industry
representatives working together to market the natural benefits of wool as the ideal fibre
to help reduce global warming.

According to international research, a household can significantly reduce its carbon

emissions by living with wool: insulating with wool, wearing wool, walking, sleeping
and sitting on wool. The European Commission reports that a household can cut its CO2
emissions by up to 300kg a year and energy bill by 5-10 per cent simply by reducing its
heating by a mere 1°C.

‘Wool has an important role to play as part of the everyday carbon solution. Ours is an
ambitious plan to let the world know just how versatile our great natural fibre is. It’s
wool’s time to help the planet and for us to sell more wool in the process,’ says alliance
chair and AWI board member Chick Olsson.

Last month, AWI facilitated an alliance of growers and scientists to position wool as the
‘planet-friendly fibre’, an initiative which AWI CEO Brenda McGahan says marries
wool’s unique natural fibre story with AWI’s new integrated marketing strategy. ‘The
other exciting component is that this initiative brings the industry together around a
global issue for which we all feel wool is a natural solution,’ says Brenda.

Joining Mr Olsson on the Wool Carbon Alliance are Dr Meredith Sheil (Australian Wool
Innovation), Martin Oppenheimer (Australian Wool Growers Association), Günther Beier
(International Wool Textile Organisation), Geoff Power (South Australian Farmers
Federation and formerly WoolProducers Australia), and Tom Ashby (Australian
Association of Stud Merino Breeders).

Wool is a planet-friendly fibre made from the simple combination of sunlight, water
and grass. It is made of up to 50 per cent carbon, stored in a stable form. It is
renewable, has the ability to biodegrade without harm to the environment and can
be recycled.

Furthermore, it takes significantly less energy to produce wool products than man-
made fibre products, and this ensures CO2 emissions are kept very low. Therefore,
the increased usage of wool can positively reduce the level of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. Wool also gives advanced and developing countries alike the
opportunity to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
Mr Olsson also noted the potential for Australian woolgrowers to reduce their
carbon footprint through on-farm sequestration of carbon. ‘Provided carbon
accounting methodologies are changed to encourage generation of credits from
sources other than agro-forestry, there is enormous potential for farmers to credit
from good environmental practice while remaining viable as food and fibre
producers and significantly reducing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere’.

‘This positive perspective is shared by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists

which calls for a greater focus on the positive role of terrestrial carbon, stored in forests,
woodlands, swamps, grasslands, farmland and soils. In its October 2009 Optimising
Carbon in the Australian landscape report

The group notes: ‘CSIRO analysis shows that if we could capture just 15 per cent of the
biophysical capacity of the Australian landscape to store carbon, it would offset the
equivalent of 25 per cent of Australia’s current annual greenhouse emissions for the next
40 years.’

The Wool Carbon Alliance and AWI are working with the Australian Government to
research and promote the many roles the fibre can play in a future carbon economy and to
take the wool message global. As a preliminary step, alliance member and IWTO
president Günther Beier said IWTO would take wool’s voice to the European Parliament
in early 2010.