The textile industry continuously attracts extensive attention because of the excessive water consumption and high pollutants emissions. Water footprint as an analytical tool is widely used in water resources management in recent years. However, the water footprint method is not adequate in comprehensive assessment of water pollution impact from the perspective of water quality change in different duration of time. The total environmental impact score (TEIS) methodology can evaluate the environmental impact of each kind of water pollutant, and taking into account the actual wastewater volume, which enables it to accurately and comprehensively identify the environmental impact of water pollutants. In this study, the production of cotton fabric was chosen as an example to evaluate the impact of wastewater discharge with TEIS method. The results showed that the environmental impact caused by wastewater discharged in batch dyeing was the greatest, followed by pretreatment and after-finishing. This was mainly because large amounts of dyes were used in the batch dyeing stage and generated many wastewater pollutants. Phosphorus caused the most severe impact, accounting for 41.5% of the total environmental impact.