Sustainability approaches within the fashion industry: the supplier perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper explores sustainability drivers and practices within the Italian fashion industry, a challenging industry with strong impacts on sustainability. More specifically, this research aims to identify the different sustainability approaches adopted by Italian fashion suppliers in terms of the internal and external sustainability practices and drivers that trigger sustainability initiatives in relation to each approach. Based on an investigation of twelve case studies, we propose a taxonomy of these approaches by adopting the supplier perspective, a novelty in the sustainability literature. We discovered four types of approaches that we labelled: under-exploited, not-interested, collaborative and developing.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• suppliers
• fashion industry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Research Project of the University of Padova, 2014 [code: prot. CPDA140710].

Notes on contributors

Andrea Lion

Andrea Lion graduated in Management Engineering at University of Padova in 2013. Actually is a PhD candidate at the Department of Management and Engineering at University of Padova. His research interests concern sustainability and supplier management.

Laura Macchion

Laura Macchion, PhD is research fellow at the Department of Management and Engineering of the University of Padova (Italy). Her PhD thesis in Management Engineering explored the theme of the internationalisation of production and distribution networks, providing evidence on how companies in the fashion industry are pursuing different strategies in order to become global and competitive players. Her research interests focus on supply chain management and operations strategies, particularly within the fashion industry. She has authored several book chapters and published in several international journals, such as: International Journal of Production Economics and Operations Management Research.

Pamela Danese

Pamela Danese, PhD is associate professor of Operations & Supply Chain Management at University of Padova, Italy. She is a member of the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) board and chair of the communication team of EurOMA. She is Special Issue Editor of International Journal of Operations & Production Management, a member of the Editorial Review Board of Journal of Operations Management and of the Editorial Board of Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal. Her research interests focus on Supply Chain Management and Lean Management. She is director of the Master in Lean Management of Fondazione CUOA, Italy. She teaches Supply Chain Management at the MS Degree in Management and Engineering, and at the PhD Programme in Management and Engineering, University of Padova. She has published in: Omega, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, International Journal of Production Research, Transportation Research: Part E, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Interfaces, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Supply Chain Forum: An International Journal, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, Operations Management Research, Industrial Management & Data Systems.

Andrea Vinelli

Andrea Vinelli, PhD is professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management and Service Operations Management at the Department of Engineering & Management at the University of Padova, Italy. He is the dean of the Council of Engineering & Management at the University of Padova. Director of the MBA Programme at the CUOA Business School. President of the Alumni Association, University of Padova. Member of the Board of the School of Engineering, University of Padova. Member of the Board of the Directors of AiIG the Italian Association of Engineering & Management. Member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management. His research interests lie in the areas of operations strategies, supply networks and supply chain management.