Understanding what to measure – and how – has never been simple. When I began setting up and assessing the environmental impacts of my prototypes, I realised that the data produced did not reflect reality, but only a possible interpretation of it. Among hypotheses, estimates, and margins of uncertainty, my starting point shifted: I began to ask myself what weight to assign to the various components.
Every weight assigned to a phase or criterion reflects a priority. It is not a mistake; it is a declaration of perspective. Having a clear method helped me make these choices visible. I realised that emissions, consumption, or margins for improvement cannot be viewed uniformly: they change according to the scale and function of each stakeholder in the supply chain. For a micro-enterprise or a small workshop, the first positive impact is often the continuity of work or social inclusion – elements that do not appear in the figures but affect the real balance of sustainability.
Identifying the weights of supply chain components serves to highlight priorities, not to generate rankings. It is a way to state where our focus lies – not to declare who is right. Discovering the work of researcher Veronica Bates Kassatly was truly significant for me. Her clear-sighted perspective – especially her insight that weighting in environmental models is never neutral but always shaped by cultural, political, and social choices – was particularly meaningful. Her work invites a form of intellectual inquiry and honesty: to recognise that methods are not infallible, but open to change and debate.

For me, this need for transparency also emerged as a response to the complexity of the textile and fashion supply chain: long, fragmented, and often opaque. Setting out the criteria, making estimates explicit, and making hypotheses visible was a way to work through this complexity, not to oversimplify it. Transparency is not required to give certainty, but to allow those reading the data to understand how it was obtained and, if they wish, to question it.

The United Separable / Minimal Path Project framework is now technically complete, but I am focusing on telling its story. That is because my aim is not to close a topic or to hype a formula, but to keep asking myself questions and to make my choices more conscious.