How Can Fashion Brands Enhance Value And Life Span Extension Of Products An Exploratory Study Of Circular Economy In Regard To The Economic Viability Of Product Life Span Extension

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: A, , course: Fashion Entrepreneurship and Innovation, language: English, abstract: Awareness of the fashion industry’s harmful impacts that significantly affect the environment and the society has increased enormously, specifically the problem of an ever-growing throwaway culture. This has led researchers and practitioners to find feasible solutions, dealing with post-consumer garment waste. In that respect, the CE has undoubtedly become the focus of current research. Substantial economic benefits are expected to accompany the transition from a linear to a circular economic model. However, there is still a lack of frameworks that explain how companies have to adapt their BMs in order to succeed in a circular environment. Furthermore, the question remains, if this could be economically feasible from a company perspective because the economic model of the fashion industry is still highly linear and its success depends on product obsolescence. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify motivations, enablers and challenges of implementing circular strategies and PLE initiatives in BMs, and explicitly exploring the economic feasibility of prolonging the lives of products. To explore these phenomena, pioneers in the field of CE and PLE were studied. The researcher employed an inductive-exploratory case study design that allowed her to investigate the practical implementations of circular approaches and contribute to existing CE and PLE theory. The findings of the cross-case analysis revealed that the transition towards a CE has been voluntary, underlying the companies’ internal motivations and sustainability agendas. External pressures do not play a role at this moment. Circular approaches support the companies’ visions to realise long-term strategies. Despite the higher costs of circular strategies and PLE initiatives, this study found that these have a positive effect on the businesses regarding enhanced customer loyalty and long-term relationships with the customer. The study is one of the first academic studies that investigates the economic feasibility of PLE initiatives from a company perspective. However, the findings of this research cannot be generalised, as the scope of the study and the sample size are constricted. Therefore, further research in this field is required.

The apparel industry has the scale, reach, and technical expertise to deliver on-target sustainable development goals within the industry’s sphere of influence in its interconnected global and local value chains. From the farm to the consumer, the textile, retail, and apparel production industry has an array of economic, environmental, social, and governance impacts. In order to meet sustainable goals, the industry is challenged to buy and produce goods and services that do not harm the environment, society, and the economy. Circular Economy and Re-Commerce in the Fashion Industry is a pivotal reference source that explores and proposes solutions for best practices to meet sustainable development goals in the fashion industry and provides guidelines for assessing the technological landscape and modeling sustainable business practices. Highlighting a wide range of topics including digital marking, consumer behavior, and social and legal perspectives, this book is ideally designed for suppliers, brand managers, retailers, multinational investors, marketers, executives, designers, manufacturers, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.

This dissertation examines post-consumer textile waste from the fashion industry's perspective, and addresses how business model innovation can facilitate reuse and recycling of garments and a transition towards a circular economy of fashion. Focusing on the emerging reuse and recycling practices of fashion brands the study builds upon one explorative and two in-depth case studies of industry pioneers and their endeavors of integrating reuse and recycling activities in their business models. Theoretically the study rests on business models, business model innovation for sustainability and circular economy. The study seeks to provide a unique contribution as it synthesizes the theoretical and empirical insights from the field of business model innovation and circular economy in the context of post-consumer textile waste. By highlighting and extending the idea of business model innovation for circular economy it makes a justification that product end-of-life phases require attention and can include new value propositions that companies can create, deliver and capture. This dissertation contains three articles, each of which contributes to an improved understanding of post-consumer textile waste management in the context of the fashion industry and its related opportunities and challenges. The findings cover both broad industry-level and more specific company-level discoveries. The industry-level findings provide a general understanding of existing practices among fashion companies while the company specific findings identify key issues and challenges of integrating a product's end-of-life aspects in an existing business model. Collectively, the findings demonstrate that end-of-life management of products is an emerging field among fashion companies and used garments can provide new value propositions for fashion brands. The findings also illustrate that the field is in its infancy and lacks best practices within business models, supply chain infrastructure, technologi

Circular Economy in Textiles and Apparel: Processing, Manufacturing, and Design is the first book to provide guidance on this subject, presenting the tools for implementing this paradigm and their impact on textile production methods. Sustainable business strategies are also covered, as are new design methods that can help in the reduction of waste. Drawing on contributions from leading experts in industry and academia, this book covers every aspect of this increasingly important subject and speculates on future developments. Provides case studies on the circular economy in operation in the textiles industry Identifies challenges to implementation and areas where more research is needed Draws on both industrial innovation and academic research to explain an emerging topic with the potential to entirely change the way we make and use clothing

Natural resources, and the materials derived from them, represent the physical basis for the economic system. Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented growth in demand for these resources, which has triggered interest from policy makers in transitioning to a more resource efficient and ...

This book provides a critical insight into sustainability and fashion in a retailing and marketing context. Examining a truly global industry, Sustainability in Fashion offers international application with a view to contextualising important developments within the industry. Contributors use their diverse backgrounds and expertise to provide a contemporary approach in examining key theoretical concepts, constructs and developments. Topics include consumer behaviour, communications, circular economy and supply chain management. The individual chapters focus on sustainability and provide a range of fashion sector examples from high street to luxury apparel.

This book provides a critical overview of technologies that are used within the fashion industry and supply chain, with a special emphasis on how they engender sustainability and the circular economy. The chapters present contemporary case studies alongside new research on technologies such as 3D printing, 3D scanning and recycling technology to assess the effect they will have on the future of fashion and its global supply chain.

Fashion law encompasses a wide variety of issues that concern an article of clothing or a fashion accessory, starting from the moment they are designed and following them through distribution and marketing phases, all the way until they reach the end-user. Contract law, intellectual property, company law, tax law, international trade, and customs law are of fundamental importance in defining this new field of law that is gradually taking shape. This volume focuses on the new frontiers of fashion law, taking into account the various fields that have recently emerged as being of great interest for the entire fashion world: from sustainable fashion to wearable technologies, from new remedies to cultural appropriation to the regulation of model weight, from advertising law on the digital market to the impact of new technologies on product distribution. The purpose is to stimulate discussion on contemporary problems that have the potential to define new boundaries of fashion law, such as the impact of the heightened ethical sensitivity of consumers (who increasingly require effective solutions), that a comparative law perspective renders more interesting. The volume seeks to sketch out the new legal fields in which the fashion industry is getting involved, identifying the new boundaries of fashion law that existing literature has not dealt with in a comprehensive manner.

This book covers all sustainable fibres applicable in the fashion sector and discusses their importance in the context of sustainability. It is the first of its kind to address all the minute details pertaining to these fibres and to connect these fibres with the world of sustainable fashion. It stresses their importance in developing sustainable apparel, since fibres play a major role as the starting point in the life cycle of clothing.