Sustainability-oriented Textile/fashion Partnerships: Mechanisms and Levels of Change

Abstract

Firms engage in partnerships to address various sustainability issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, cleaner production, labour rights or working conditions in their operations and throughout their supply chains. These partnerships utilise various mechanisms that can be seen as enablers of change, including product development, process enhancements, policy-related initiatives and awareness-raising campaigns. Through these mechanisms, partnerships can seek to achieve change at the firm, industry, supply chain and societal levels. This paper studies the relationship between these mechanisms and firms’ targeted level of change in textiles/fashion. We analyse 444 sustainability partnerships using a mixed-method approach. We find that partnerships targeting these broader levels focus more on social sustainability issues in this industry. Those targeting society-level partnerships involve cross-sector partners. Our study adds to the conversations about sustainability-oriented partnerships by demonstrating how mechanism-change dynamics can be contextual and industry-specific.