Modelling environmental value : an examination of sustainable business models within the fashion industry

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of environmental concern, perceived value, personal norms and willingness to pay on generation Z’s purchase intention for recycled clothing.,The data were collected from five Indian universities. A total of 497 usable responses were analyzed. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for examining the validity and reliability of the scales. Further, the structural equation modeling was used to assess the relationship among the constructs.,Findings suggested that willingness to pay, environmental concern, perceived value and personal norms influence generation Z’s purchase intention for recycled clothing. Willingness to pay, environmental concern and perceived value were major predictors of purchase intention for recycled clothing.,This study holds much importance to the marketers of recycled clothing as it provides useful insights for formulating the appropriate promotional strategies. The study also contributes to the consumer behavior literature by addressing the existing research gap.,Most of the studies existing in this area have focused on the manufacturing side only except few which explored the consumption side of recycled clothing. Hence, the current study is an attempt to fill this research gap.

Investigating the determinants of behavioral intentions of generation Z for recycled clothing: an evidence from a developing economy

Managing sustainability in the fashion business: challenges in product development for clothing longevity in the UK

User acceptance and adoption of circular offerings in the fashion sector: insights from user-generated online reviews

The purpose of this paper is to explore swap-shops, which emerged as part of the collaborative consumption phenomenon, by investigating what the implications are of consumers acting as suppliers and how this affects supply chain management within the context of the fashion industry.,This study explores the collaborative consumption phenomenon through swap-shops in three countries: the UK, Finland and Germany. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with swappers, non-swappers and organisers. To further enhance the data set six observations of swap-shop events were conducted. Data were transcribed and analysed using multiple coding cycles and using a grounded research approach.,Findings indicate that consumers were most concerned with availability/sizing and quality of garments, whilst organisers felt uncertainty was the biggest issue. Data allowed creating a framework that blueprints the swapping supply chain, in which consumers emerge as suppliers. It highlights possible activities in different cycles, whilst furthermore indicates that consumption cycles can move from monetary (e.g. selling) to non-monetary transactions (e.g. swapping) and vice versa.,Swapping as a relatively new fashion supply mode implies a fluidity of market roles. Disruptive business models can blur boundaries between the supply- and demand-side. This indicates that consumers can change “roles” multiple times as they go through the consumption cycle.,The authors extended the knowledge on swapping by describing how this phenomenon can activate consumers, and extend and intensify the use of garments and therefore swapping can slow the material throughput in the system. It is the first paper to focus solely on swapping within a three country context.

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The Clothes Swapping Phenomenon: When Consumers become Suppliers

Past studies have considered the impact of fashion on consumer textile disposal behaviour, but have focused mainly on drivers of clothing waste. There is a lack of research that examines consumer attitudes towards fashion and their disposal methods. This study conducted an online survey of 410 people in Ontario, Canada with varying demographic characteristics to assess how they currently manage their textile waste including resell, swap, take-back, donation and disposal. Respondents were asked about their fashion interest and shopping frequency and were assigned a fashion index value. The fashion index value is not a means of grouping consumers but is instead a continuum to model interest in fashion, with one extreme representing fashion consumers and the other representing non-fashion consumers. Statistical analysis was then used to establish whether there is a link between textile waste behaviour and fashion index. The results indicate that consumers with a high fashion index (i.e. fashion consumers) and consumers with low fashion index (i.e. non-fashion consumers) manage their textile waste differently. While the majority of participants donate and dispose of unwanted clothes, fashion consumers are more interested and more likely to participate in alternative methods (e.g. resell, swap, and take back) for removing unwanted textiles. Although fashion consumers produce more textile waste than non-fashion consumers, textile consumption cannot be directly equated with textile waste since fashion consumers were found to have a lower disposal rate than non-fashion consumers (38 percent to 50 percent, respectively). The distinct disposal characteristics of fashion and non-fashion consumers (i.e. interest and willingness to participate in alternative channels) allows strategies to be tailored accordingly so that the amount of waste going to landfill can be reduced.

Fashion interest as a driver for consumer textile waste management: reuse, recycle or disposal

Past studies have considered opportunities and barriers to sustainability in the fashion industry, or consumer perspectives and disposal behaviour, but few studies have explored a circular economy approach as a chance for business extension. There is a lack of research that examines luxury fashion, circular economy and entrepreneurship, showing how a circular economy could look. This study used a case study approach to observe and analyse the circular economy business model of Eileen Fisher (EF), New York. This study explores how the company has developed its take-back programme and how this programme led to the development of recycling operations at EF. In 2017, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees from EF, representing different departments and operating at various functions in the company. Their responses were analysed according to a content analysis method to outline EF’s approaches to both luxury fashion and a circular economy additional data from the company was obtained. Results were summarized in an analysis of the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats (SWOT) to show advantages and challenges the company faces when introducing the circular economy concept. To better understand the operational processes, while visiting the recycling factory, a variation of a multi-moment recording procedure was conducted assessing the procedures of a particular operation occurring at a specific place over a specified duration to capture how the work was completed and in what ways (REFA-Methodenlehre 1978). The goal of this procedure was to compile a detailed description of the actual processing steps of all the work in the recycling facility, to discover challenges and risks. This chapter describes the effect of developing and implementing a circular economy approach at EF. The results indicate that a circular economy approach in the luxury fashion industry is possible and is beneficial to extended business, can generate revenue and reduce environmental degradation. This chapter explains that a circular economy approach in luxury fashion requires a company to produce luxury products that are timeless, high quality, durable and retail at a high price.

A Circular Economy Approach in the Luxury Fashion Industry: A Case Study of Eileen Fisher

Textile waste is a new waste category, and there is a lack of research on the quantity and quality of textiles in the municipal waste stream. Textile quality analysis (i.e., the condition of the item and its fibre content) is particularly time-consuming and requires specific textile and grading knowledge; however, it is essential in determining possibilities for reuse and recycling. Likewise, there is a lack of methods for conducting textile waste assessments. This study presents a novel procedure for assessing textile waste, starting with a definition of textile waste from the perspective of the circular economy and waste management. The assessment procedure uses textile collectors for categorizing and grading textiles, and categorizes textiles into six categories and 44 sub-categories. The researchers analyzed 1767.6 kg of textile waste or 10,716 items, collected from Ontario municipalities over three periods from 2019 to 2020. Textiles made up 4.4% of the residential waste stream. Based on 2018 data on Canadian waste generation, we estimate that Canada-wide, this would result in 176,343 tonnes of textile waste, or 12 kg of textile waste per person. We found that 65% of this waste could be reused, and 21% recycled. Diverting this waste would result in large environmental benefits and economic savings. Currently, managing this waste is expensive and represents a missed opportunity to utilize materials that could have either been reused or recycled. We conclude that there are opportunities for increasing the circularity of textiles through various waste diversion programs in Ontario. 

Textile waste in Ontario, Canada: Opportunities for reuse and recycling

A person’s fashion interest describes how familiar a person is with fashion. There are major differences among consumers in terms of fashion interest that can be used as a segmentation criterion for markets. Understanding the drivers of clothing consumption can be used to develop strategies to address consumption habits, including overconsumption. Consequently, many studies have developed questionnaires and interview guidelines to define fashion interest or other fashion-related attitudes and behaviors. However, there is a gap in research about validating fashion scales. This study validates a fashion interest scale by comparing a random sample with a control group of fashion students, demonstrating differentiation between groups. We used principal component analysis (PCA) to explore the scale’s homogeneity and t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to validate the scale. The results suggest that the scale is homogeneous and has high validity. We conclude that the scale can be used as a tool to segment markets to gain faster and higher quality data and as a benchmark for other studies.

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Sabine Weber

Papers

Fashion interest as a driver for consumer textile waste management: reuse, recycle or disposal

A Circular Economy Approach in the Luxury Fashion Industry: A Case Study of Eileen Fisher

Textile waste in Ontario, Canada: Opportunities for reuse and recycling

How Fashionable Are We? Validating the Fashion Interest Scale through Multivariate Statistics