Retailers’ extent of involvement in sustainability and role in creating sustainable apparel and textiles from South Africa

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this comparative case study research was to identify the sustainability-focused influencing power and involvement of retailers in the buyer-driven apparel and textiles industry in South Africa. Four textile and apparel retailers’ businesses were studied through desktop review of documents and field research. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s Higg 2.0 Brand Modules (environment and social/labour) and a beta Retail Environmental Module were used as a theoretical framework. The retailers varied in their pursuit of various environmental and social/labour sustainability practices. The qualitative analysis identified that all three retailers based in South Africa sourced at least some of their apparel and textile products locally, whereas the international retailer used a global sourcing strategy that did not include South Africa. The three local retailers were also all committed to job creation under the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment initiative. South Africa-based retailers are, therefore, potentially strong contributors to creating demand for sustainable apparel and textiles from their country.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• HIGG index
• South Africa
• cotton
• retail

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by South Africa Sustainable Cotton Cluster.