Authored by Marlen Gabriele Arnold*
Abstract
The fashion industry is the second largest global industry and constantly involved in local, regional and global affairs including environmental harm and social abuse. Stakeholder engagement, rising public consciousness and responsibility as well as economic pressure and entrepreneurial creativity have been resulted in nascent social and circular business strategies in the fashion industry as well as evolutionary steps towards sustainability in general. By respecting planetary boundaries circular economy is one approach the fashion industry is also facing at. Although circular economy is associated with benefits for society, social sustainability-related issues are not automatically addressed and integrated. But how are ideas and approaches mirroring social sustainability, circular strategies and systemic shifts embedded in the fashion industry? Conducting a software-based content analysis by means of LeximancerTM, social sustainability concepts in the fashion industry were compared for three groups at three different times. Therefore, academic publications, two large and internationally operating fashion companies, and stakeholder communication concerning sustainable and circular fashion were investigated. The findings reveal that social issues are underrepresented in the concept of circular economy in the fashion industry and limited to standard topics. Systemic shifts are mainly addressed by academia and stakeholders. We strongly recommend to integrate social sustainability concepts from the very first into approaches of circular economy in order to strengthen a sustainable development in the fashion industry.
Keywords: Social sustainability; Sustainability transitions; Circular economy; Fashion industry; Stakeholder; Software-based content analysis; LeximancerTM
Introduction
Sustainability in the global textile, apparel and fashion industry is becoming more and more important. This industry, characterized by long, complex and global value chains, and embracing a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups, is confronted with multiple sustainability challenges due to prevalent linear production and consumption patterns. Next to environmental impacts such as water pollution, chemicals, waste accumulation or rainforest destruction [1,2], the industry is also responsible for social harm and crises across the world including human rights abuses, child labour or worker discrimination [3].
The recent Covid-19 global pandemic illustrates the still-existing deficits and paradoxes, multi-faceted and intricate sustainability challenges in the industry in an impressive way. The unprecedented outbreak of the pandemic has led to the cancellation of orders in Asia by some of the largest fashion companies in Western countries, thereby leaving garment workers in factories located in countries such as Bangladesh or Cambodia unpaid and weakened in their working and living conditions [4,5]. The temporary closure of retail shops and consumer shutdown in particularly western textile consumption hubs is creating enormous economic and financial difficulties involving lower income and short-time working for employees, while retailers continue to encourage online shopping [6]. At the same time, the sustained outsourcing of parts of textile production to low-cost production countries now being deemed as essentially relevant such as medical face masks and components or provision of fabrics illustrates the dependence of entire (primarily western) societies on stable global value chains, commodity flows, transport and logistics networks, and, of course, mutual goodwill. However, the pandemic also offers opportunities for reorientation and change towards greater social sustainability, awareness and respect for the ecological foundations of society. Terms closely linked to social sustainability such as solidarity, cohesion, responsibility, cooperation (instead of competition), commitment, localism, integrity and transparency take on special meaning in these times and promote new movements such as #FairFashionSolidarity. They, however, also require joint and ‘true’ sustainability solutions on a global scale.
Social sustainability is concerned with managerial strategies and processes concerning positive and negative impacts of corporate activities on people and communities [7]. Müller-Christ G [8] differentiates different dimensions of social sustainability embracing opportunities for shaping and promoting living spaces that enable decision-making, responsibility and action based on reciprocal rather than asymmetrical relationships. With regard to the global textile, apparel and fashion industry, particularly the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh in 2013 forged the implementation of social sustainability and compliance [9-11]. This implies also calls for systemic and radical changes concerning prevailing production and consumption patterns requiring also non-technological innovations [12-14]. One way of fostering such shifts and transitions towards sustainability is represented by the circular economy concept [15]. But how are ideas and approaches mirroring social sustainability, circular strategies and systemic shifts embedded in the fashion industry?
Against this background, based on a multiple-pillar conceptual framework, this research addresses the following research questions:
• RQ 1: What concepts assigned to social sustainability, circular strategies and systemic shifts are covered in the sustainability reports of fashion companies?
• RQ 2: How do these aspects deviate from disclosures in academia and broader society?
Firstly, an overview of the circular economy as a core concept for driving sustainability and sustainable development will be presented. It is followed by the description of material collection and data analysis employed in the present study. We then illustrate and discuss the findings of our software-based content analysis by highlighting particularly concepts mirroring social sustainability and concepts indicating change, shifts and transitions as communicated by different actors closely linked with the textile, apparel and fashion industry.
Sustainability Transitions towards the Circular Economy
This section summarizes conceptual and theoretical foundations related to the concept of circular economy as well as sustainable and circular business models. Against the background of the study’s research questions, particular attention has been given to highlighting aspects concerning social sustainability in circular strategies as emphasized in extant literature.
“Sustainability transitions are long-term, multi-dimensional, and fundamental transformation processes through which established socio-technical systems shift to more sustainable modes of production and consumption” [16]. The move towards a circular economy can be considered to spur such transition processes. It is aimed at a paradigm shift towards innovative and other paths of economic interaction, productions systems, consumption behavior and habits, and business models refocusing from mainly linear practices, like exploit-make-take-waste, to a regenerative, circular and green economy [17-19]. Several issues are particularly emphasized, such as closing loops, reduction of resource consumption, decoupling of wealth from ecosystem harm, cradle-to-cradle and investing in social and ecological longterm resilience [20-22]. So, respecting ecosystem capacities and planetary boundaries by reorganizing economic activities towards a reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling of goods and services are key objectives in a circular economy. Shifting towards a circular economy aims at systemic redesign, organizational and institutional changes resulting in sustainability profits [20,23-25,15]. Although it is a promising concept vital criticism is found. Currently, practical implementation is critical as well as a lack of industry-specific solutions and specifications [23,18,25,26]. Consequently, clarifying and guiding research is necessary.
Especially in light of the criticism of being too vague there are several parallels between the concepts of circular economy and sustainability / sustainable development. Both stress intraand intergenerational aspects, an integration of criteria that goes beyond economic factors for change and the entrepreneurial responsibility for transitions [21,27-29]. Main differences are to be found concerning key objectives, criteria, methods and impacts. Circular economy mainly focuses on ecological and economic harmonization whereas sustainability also integrates social issues by integrating and harmonizing social, environmental and economic concerns as well as broad stakeholder interests [30]. In circular economy concepts social aspects often are of inferior significance being considered only indirectly [31,22]. This has already been criticized in the scientific community [32]. Indeed, potentials for incorporating social sustainability include value-based changes of the overall global economic system as well as the establishment of new ways of non-ownership, low consumption, decent work, etc., and may enable creating new value [32-34].
Transforming value chains, business models as well as business models innovations are a pivotal goal for a circular economy in the fashion industry and are demanded by several stakeholders [35- 37]. Although particular issues related to social sustainability are addressed, e.g. sustainable consumption, sufficiency or system change, circular strategies do not embrace all pillars of sustainability. As social sustainability concepts are underrepresented in circular economy approaches, this study will analyse and contrast socialrelated concepts in the fashion industry from a multi-stakeholder perspective.
Method
Our study builds on a multiple-pillar conceptual framework and analyses three different groups of publications from a comparative perspective. These disclosures include corporate sustainability reports of two fashion retailers, academic publications, as well as reports and documents issued by stakeholders. Thereby, the study covers not only practical and theoretical perspectives, but also discourses in the broader public. The following section describes the process of identifying, collecting and evaluating relevant material as well as the method of data analysis chosen. Figure 1 presents the overall analytical and conceptual framework of our research.
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