1. Working along the value chain for circular economy transitions in fashion textiles: A participatory framework.
- Author
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Mahanty, Sampriti and Domenech, Teresa
- Subjects
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VALUE chains , *CIRCULAR economy , *SUSTAINABLE fashion , *TRANSITION economies , *FAST fashion , *STAKEHOLDER analysis - Abstract
The textile industry's resource use, waste, and emissions have led to severe scrutiny, worsened by fast fashion's rise, making clothing disposable. The circular economy (CE) offers a solution to address these issues but achieving circular fashion requires systemic and comprehensive stakeholder engagement across the value chain. Current research often overlooks wider stakeholders beyond internal company members, neglecting calls to incorporate a systems perspective in CE transitions. Moreover, the potential of stakeholder engagement for social learning, where stakeholders mutually share and acquire knowledge, remains largely untapped. To this end, this paper provides a systematic methodology of stakeholder engagement based on an empirical setting of transition towards CE in fashion textiles in London. It entails identifying contexts, aligning stakeholders' actions, negotiating interventions, and communicating insights effectively. Based on the learnings from an empirical stakeholder engagement process, findings suggest a lack of alignment in the understanding of the CE concept across actors, that is underpinned by a fragmented knowledge of the overall value chain, often leading to also fragmented siloed policy approaches. While this paper uses fashion textiles as an illustrative case study, the process-led framework is largely applicable across different areas of the CE transition. • Stakeholder engagement fosters social learning in circular transitions. • The fashion industry lacks alignment on circularity interventions across the value chain. • Actors in fashion lack a cohesive understanding of the value chain. • Circular fashion requires design, business models, and behaviour changes. • The stakeholder engagement framework applies to circular economy transitions in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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