A Primary-Data Scope 3 Carbon and Water Footprint Inventory of the Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Sector: Modelling Export Exposure Under the European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism

The European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) entered its definitive, financially binding phase on 1 January 2026, and the European Commission has signalled its intention to extend the mechanism's scope toward downstream and chemical-intensive products over the present decade, placing the ready-made garment (RMG) sector within its medium-term reach. For Bangladesh, where apparel accounts for more than four-fifths of merchandise exports and the EU absorbs more than half of those apparel shipments, the prospective inclusion of garments under CBAM represents a material threat to export competitiveness, compounded by the country's imminent graduation from least-developed-country status in November 2026 and the consequent erosion of preferential market access. Yet the empirical basis for quantifying this exposure is weak: Bangladesh lacks a sector-specific, primary-data greenhouse-gas and water-footprint inventory for its textile and RMG industries, and existing national inventories treat these industries as an undifferentiated subset of manufacturing using top-down methods. This study addresses that gap by constructing a primary-data carbon and water footprint inventory of the Bangladesh RMG sector, structured according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol scope taxonomy, and by coupling the inventory to a scenario model of CBAM export exposure. Facility-level activity data were assembled for thirty-two representative manufacturing units spanning knit, woven and denim product lines, and characterised against the cradle-to-gate system boundary. The inventory yields a sector-weighted mean cradle-to-gate global warming potential of 16.0 kg CO₂-equivalent per kilogram of finished garment, of which Scope 3 upstream activities (principally fibre and yarn production) contribute approximately forty-two per cent, Scope 2 grid electricity twenty-seven per cent, Scope 1 onsite combustion and effluent treatment twenty-five per cent, and Scope 3 downstream export freight six per cent. The mean blue-water footprint of wet processing is 136 litres per kilogram and the grey-water footprint 119 litres per kilogram, consistent with independent Bangladeshi field studies. A Monte Carlo analysis over primary-data input ranges returns a 90 % credible interval of 12.4 to 20.1 kg CO₂-eq per kilogram. The CBAM exposure model indicates that, at a reference certificate price of EUR 100 per tonne CO₂ and under the Scope 1+2 accounting boundary, the embedded-carbon liability is approximately EUR 0.95 per kilogram of garment, equivalent to an ad-valorem exposure of approximately 4.8 per cent of free-on-board export value under business-as-usual conditions. A modelled decarbonisation pathway combining energy efficiency, rooftop photovoltaics, renewable power-purchase agreements, process-heat electrification, low-impact dyeing and recycled-fibre substitution reduces the cradle-to-gate footprint by approximately fifty-four per cent and the ad-valorem CBAM exposure to approximately 1.3 per cent. The study provides the first integrated, primary-data, scope-resolved carbon and water inventory of the Bangladesh RMG sector tied explicitly to CBAM exposure modelling, and offers an evidence base for sector decarbonisation strategy, buyer engagement and trade-policy negotiation.