Environmental sustainability in the fashion industry "A company is no more sustainable than its supply chain"

Abstract

Sustainable supply chain management has come to be vital, especially considering the importance of having a fully traceable supply chain, particularly regarding textile production in Asia. Current research has observed a lack of qualitative site studies, in order to acquire a more complete understanding of the interrelationships between strategy, risk management, and transparency throughout the supply chain. This study aims to observe and investigate the process of a Swedish fashion company’s supply chain and its sourced production in China to find ways to integrate sustainability throughout the chain. This investigation is based on a field study, observations, and 19 interviews with people along the supply chain. Based on the current research we have found that trust, traceability, transparency and collaboration are the key factors to further integrate sustainability into the supply chain. The main outcomes of this study is that companies need to adopt an inclusive approach when dealing with actors in the most critical processes of the supply chain, and that it is necessary to increase monitoring of distant tiers and collaboration with the closer tiers.