Scope for Sustainability in the Fashion Industry Supply Chain

Abstract

This chapter seeks to determine whether entrepreneurial technological innovation can mitigate the intrinsic contradiction between short-term fashion and the long-term fashion industry in the supply chain to achieve environmental, economic, and social sustainability. The current fashion industry is driven by the ephemeral nature of fashion and its associated wastes which are not very sustainable. Although literature has demonstrated that operations research can be used to reduce inventory wastes, whether emerging technologies can reformat the whole mode of production in the fashion industry to be more sustainable remains unknown. Through interviewing professionals who specialize in the three key stages in the supply chain, this chapter concludes that the transition to sustainability is possible if technology is not just regarded as a tool to reduce carbon emissions, but used to materialize the sustainable design philosophy and integrated into the sustainability rebranding process in the whole supply chain from beginning to end.