Exploring the decisive barriers to achieve circular economy: Strategies for the textile innovation in Taiwan

Abstract

The movement toward a more circular textile industry still faces numerous challenges. Governments and business leaders must learn more about the interaction among obstacles to identifying decisive barriers and design more efficient circular economy (CE) strategies. The textile industry in Taiwan is important in the innovation and supply of circular textiles worldwide. The purpose of the present study is to identify the decisive CE barriers and offer guidelines on improving textile industry innovation in Taiwan. This study adopts an integrated method that combines the Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM), total interpretive structural modeling (TISM), and Matrix of Cross-Impact Multiplications Applied to a Classification (MICMAC). Our results reveal six dominant barriers that require action: low customer demand for recycled textile products, lack of successful circular business models, the challenge of collaborative innovation among supply chain partners, lack of high-quality recycling materials, and high costs but low economic benefits in short-term. Finally, we suggest two mitigation strategies comprising an infrastructural strategy and platform strategy to help the Taiwan textile industry transition toward CE.