Sustainability 2015, 7, 15400-15406; doi:10.

3390/su71115400
OPEN ACCESS

sustainability
ISSN 2071-1050
www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Editorial

Sustainability in Fashion Business Operations

Tsan-Ming Choi 1,* and Yongjian Li 2

1
Business Division, Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
2
Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China; E-Mail: liyongjian@nankai.edu.cn

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: jason.choi@polyu.edu.hk;

Tel.: +852-2766-6450.

Academic Editor: Marc A. Rosen

Received: 12 November 2015 / Accepted: 12 November 2015 / Published: 19 November 2015

Abstract: Under the global trend of sustainability, many companies selling fashion
products have to reshape their operational strategies. Over the past few years, we have
witnessed many fashion companies going green by re-engineering their business processes
and establishing their formal sustainability programs. Many important topics, such as
closed-loop supply chain management, corporate social responsibility, and economic
sustainability, are all related to sustainable fashion business operations management.
This paper provides a brief review of these critical topics, introduces the special issue, and
proposes future research areas to achieve sustainable operations management in the
fashion business.

Keywords: sustainable fashion operations; sustainable supply chain management; green

operations management; sustainable fashion industry; fashionable products

1. Introduction

Sustainability refers to the attainment of the triple bottom line (3BL), which includes environment,
society, and economy [1,2]. Nowadays, sustainability is a hot topic everywhere and this global
sustainability trend has led to many innovative business operations strategies in many companies
selling fashion products. For instance, over the past few years, many fashion companies have gone
green by re-engineering their business processes [3] and establishing their formal sustainability
programs to achieve 5R (reduce, reuse, recycle, re-design, re-image) [4,5]. They usually adopt a formal
Sustainability 2015, 7 15401

corporate social responsibility scheme and make use of it as an important tool to promote the company
image [6,7]. They would employ more environmentally friendly materials (e.g., organic cotton) and
conduct a lot of “eco-promotion” [8]. Fashion companies also take a more careful step in handling
product returns [9] and they pay full attention to the proper management of the respective closed-loop
supply chains [10–13], which include remanufacturing processes [14]. It is interesting to note that even
the fast-fashion brands, which are known to be advocators of “disposable fashion”, are now very
“sustainable” and environmentally conscious [15]. Of course, the increase of sustainability level of
fast-fashion brands is properly related to the global awareness and concerns of environmental problems
as well as the strong pressure created by the consumers in the market, especially in many developed
European countries [16].
In this paper, we discuss sustainability in fashion business operations in three prominent areas,
namely closed-loop supply chain management, corporate social responsibility, and business strategies
for sustainability. For each area, we review some related studies and also introduce the related papers
published in Sustainability’s Special Issue on “Sustainability in Fashion Business Operations”.
We also conclude by summarizing the findings and presenting the future research directions proposed
in the papers of the special issue.

2. Closed-Loop Supply Chain Management

Closed-loop supply chain management, including reverse logistics, is a critical issue to enhance
environmental sustainability. As a matter of fact, instead of moving the damaged products, scraps, and
unsold fashion products to a landfill, the most important goal of closed-loop supply chain management
is to properly reuse, remanufacture, and recycle all of them so that some value can be re-generated.
Even though the remanufacturing process also incurs additional carbon and pollutant emissions, it is
commonly believed that the remanufacturing process in closed-loop supply chain management can
help reduce the damage brought to the environment. In the literature, closed-loop supply chain
management has been well studied. For example, Atasu et al. [14] study the remanufacturing process
as a marketing strategy. Savaskan et al. [11] and Choi et al. [12] both explore the influence of different
supply chain leadership on the closed-loop supply chain’s performance. For a recent review on closed-loop
supply chains, refer to [13].
In this special issue, Hu et al. [17] study the rent-based closed-loop supply chain system with the
goal of enhancing the level of sustainability in the fashion industry. The authors discuss many
important activities in the fashion supply chain system, including fashion design and manufacturing,
laundry, inventory control, and logistics, and propose some specific promotion measures for improving
sustainability. Li et al. [18] conduct an evolutionary game analysis of a two-echelon closed-loop
supply chain with asymmetric information. The authors propose that proper pricing and government
subsidy are both critical factors to the success of remanufacturing in the closed-loop supply chain
system. Wang et al. [19] investigate the optimal channel selection problem in a remanufacturing
fashion supply chain. They consider the presence of a government subsidy. They find that the subsidy
can provide strong support and the much-needed incentive to promote remanufacturing. At the same
time, they find that if the market acceptance for the remanufactured product is high, the remanufacturer
will compete with the manufacturer. They argue that the optimal choice by the remanufacturer may not
Sustainability 2015, 7 15402

be beneficial to social welfare and the environment. In the closed-loop supply chain, even though
remanufacturing may create additional values and benefits, there is an unavoidable emission of carbon.
In fact, the recent literature has extensively examined the carbon emission and pollution [20] related
measures. For example, Hua et al. [21] study how companies can properly manage carbon footprints in
inventory control. Choi [22] examines the local sourcing scheme for fashion companies under the
quick response strategy with the consideration of the carbon footprint tax. Choi [23] investigates how
the carbon taxation scheme may affect the optimal supplier selection for apparel companies. In this
special issue, Oh and Jeong [24] explore this issue by building a multi-objective mixed integer linear
programming optimization model to help determine the optimal product pricing, production, shipping,
and stocking quantities with the considerations of both closed-loop supply chain profit and carbon
emissions. Finally, He et al. [25] analyze the carbon emission abatement in fashion supply chain
systems. They consider the case when there are carbon emission-sensitive consumers in the market.
They examine four different scenarios in which the carbon emissions can be reduced. These four
scenarios also correspond to different supply chain structures under different vertical incentives. They
prove that by implementing a vertical transfer payment scheme, the carbon emissions can be reduced
and supply chain profitability can be enhanced.

3. Corporate Social Responsibility

Nowadays, more and more fashion companies have developed formal sustainability programs and
corporate social responsibility measures. In fact, the recent literature has also examined how the formal
sustainability and corporate social responsibility programs affect business operations for fashion
companies. For example, Caniato et al. [3] conduct an exploratory case study on the environmental
sustainability in the fashion supply chain. Ho and Choi [4] investigate the 5Rs in fashion companies
and they find that fashion companies have worked very hard to implement corporate social
responsibility and sustainability-related schemes. In a recent study, Li et al. [5] conduct a public data
empirical study on how the formal sustainability programs affect the large-scale fashion companies’
ability to deal with the 2008 financial tsunami. All these studies reveal that corporate social
responsibility and sustainability programs are all influential to fashion business operations.
In this special issue, Shen et al. [26] apply an analytical hierarchy process to assess the barriers of
developing corporate social responsibility in textile companies. They consider the case with the fuzzy
environment. They uncover the factors that are barricades to the implementation of corporate social
responsibility in an Indian textile company. They find that financial constraints constitute the largest
hurdle to the implementation of corporate social responsibility. Wu et al. [27] examine how the
operations management practices on “lean, green, and corporate social responsibility” influence the
three bottom lines for sustainability. The authors construct an integrated model and develop
propositions. They argue that implementing the integrated practices together may have a more
significant impact on the three bottom lines than applying the individual practices separately. In order
to achieve a high standard of corporate social responsibility, fashion companies have to carefully select
their suppliers and ensure the upstream supply chain is ethical and socially responsible. Timberland, a
well-developed fashion brand, once got into trouble for its corporate social responsibility because it
was unclear about the upstream supplier’s practices of getting leathers and other materials [20]. In this
Sustainability 2015, 7 15403

special issue, Jia et al. [28] explore the optimal fashion supplier selection problem for getting
sustainable materials supplied in fashion clothing production. The authors first identify 12 criteria from
the three bottom lines’ (economic, environmental, and social) perspectives for assessing suppliers.
Based on a real case, they employ the multi-criteria decision making tool called “Technique for Order
of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution” (TOPSIS) to rank the supplier candidates.

4. Business Strategies for Sustainability

To achieve a sustainable business operation, fashion companies have to ensure that the business is
viable financially. Thus, even if the companies pay full attention to the environmental issues and social
welfare [20], business profit is still critical and should never be ignored. In this special issue,
Peng et al. [29] develop an analytical model to explore the project duration incentives for the fashion
retailing franchising arrangement. The authors consider the over-confidence issues as well as the level
of risk. They propose a new compensation mechanism which can hedge the risk when an agent
breaches the franchising contract. Sheu [30] conducts a scientific study on green supply chain
collaboration for fashionable consumer electronics products. Based on the resource dependence theory,
the author develops a new conceptual model to explore how political and social power would affect
channel power restructuring and green supply chain collaboration. Many important insights are then
derived. Han et al. [31] study a single manufacturer–two retailer supply chain system in which there is
price and service competition. The authors study the equilibrium prices and service levels, and reveal
how the production cost and product profitability affect the equilibrium decisions and the supply chain
members’ economic sustainability. Finally, Shen [32] conducts a case study on a renowned fast-fashion
brand, H&M (Stockholm, Sweden), which has developed a sustainable fashion supply chain with the
use of eco-materials and by following many sustainability guidelines. Based on the publicly available
secondary data, the author reveals that H&M’s operations decisions may be associated with human
well-being in different countries. To be specific, he finds that the sourcing team in H&M tends to
select suppliers in low-human-well-being countries and the supply chain team in H&M may set a
higher inventory level in the countries with higher human well-being.

5. Concluding Remarks

We have discussed in the above sections the various important areas related to sustainability in
fashion business operations. Some related papers in the literature have been reviewed and the papers
featured in this special issue have also been introduced. From all these discussions, there is no doubt
that sustainability is a critical issue in fashion business operations and it has been examined from
different perspectives, via different methods and approaches. As a summary, Table 1 presents the core
issues examined by each featured paper in the special issue and the respective proposed future research
directions. These proposed further studies are all constructive and important. We hope that the findings
and proposed future research areas will stimulate new, cutting-edge research on sustainable fashion
business operations management.
Sustainability 2015, 7 15404

Table 1. Core topics and future research directions of the papers featured in this special issue.
Papers Core Topics Future Research Directions
Conduct a real world study on the acceptance of the rent-based model.
Sustainable, rent-based, closed-loop Examine how consumer behaviors will affect the application of the
[17]
fashion supply chain management rent-based model.
Construct detailed optimization model for further in-depth analysis.
Evolutionary game analysis of
[18] closed-loop supply chains under Extend the analysis to the case with more than two populations.
information asymmetry
Optimal channel choice in a
Consider the channel coordination challenge with and without the
[19] remanufacturing fashion supply
government subsidy scheme.
chain with government subsidy
Profit and carbon emission analysis
[24] Incorporate quick response and fast-fashion components into the model.
in closed-loop fashion supply chains
Examine the channel coordination mechanism.
Analysis of carbon emission
[25] Incorporate stochastic demand and retail pricing decision into
abatement in fashion supply chains
the model.
Evaluating barricades of corporate
Explore why the government is not much involved in corporate social
[26] social responsibility in the Indian
responsibility practices in Indian textile companies.
textile company
Collect more data to verify the framework.
Conduct more in-depth analysis on the three integrated practices.
How the integrated practices affect
[27] Extend the study to focal companies and others.
sustainability
Further explore the impacts brought by individual practices to the three
bottom lines.
Optimal fashion supplier selection Extend the scope to cover other functions, in addition to
[28] problem with sustainability material sourcing.
considerations Consider more factors in the extended model.
Impacts of project duration of the Extend the model to a more realistic setting.
[29]
fashion franchising contract Employ the nonlinear utility function.
Green supply chain collaboration Collect additional data from different industries.
[30] under the third party power Extend the conceptual model.
intervention Consider the influence of competitor power.
Equilibrium analysis of supply chains Use the stochastic demand.
[31]
with price and service competition Further simplify the model to generate more analytical findings.
A case study on sustainability Investigating more aspects of the sustainable fashion supply chain
[32]
of H&M should be considered.

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank the editor-in-chief Marc A. Rosen and the managing editors Guoshui Liu and
Le Zhang for their kind support for the development and completion of this meaningful special issue.
We are also indebted to all reviewers and authors for their hard work. Tsan-Ming Choi’s research is
partially supported by the research grant PolyU 155013/14B; Yongjian Li’s research is partially
supported by the Major Program of the National Social Science Fund of China, Grant No. 13&ZD147.
Sustainability 2015, 7 15405

Author Contributions

Both authors are guest editors of the special issue. They both have good contributions to the
development and completion of this important special issue.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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