Once students are educated to become sustainable designers, green and social entrepreneurs or impact investors the number of purpose-driven brands will increase, spurring the transition to a new system.
In addition, the results provide valuable insights for both industry-wide (e.g. GFA) and cross-sectoral organizations (e.g. EMF) that seek to foster the transition towards sustainability. Knowing about the fashion SMEs’ challenge, these organizations can assist SMEs in overcoming them by offering appropriate tools. For example, they could enable collaboration across the industry by arranging matchmaking sessions with other stakeholders, ranging from material suppliers to larger brands. Also, as high minimum quantities represent a major challenge for SMEs, organizations could consolidate collective demand for materials. Providing a circular design toolbox, a waste material supplier list or a common sustainability glossary are only a few of the ways in which they could support SMEs in a sustainable transformation.
Lastly, this study emphasized the crucial role of consumers. In addition to other stakeholders, consumers also have to take responsibility for their own actions when dealing with fashion items. In particular, consumers need to re-connect with fashion items by understanding the processes and consequences behind clothing production and by learning how to take care of their clothes (washing/repair) to re-build appreciation for clothes. This also includes reducing excessive consumption. However, if clothes are purchased, consumers should prioritize sustainable brands using waste materials over those pursuing conventional business goals.
Only if consumers make well-informed and ethical purchase decisions can a sustainable transformation be achieved.
The practical implications for a great variety of actors have exemplified how complex and intertwined the fashion system is and that joint efforts are needed to change the system towards a circular - and thus sustainable - fashion industry.
6. Limitations and Further Research
Accordingly, the study’s results are not necessarily representative for SMEs as a group. Just how well these findings apply to medium-sized enterprises requires further research. Moreover, the limited scholarly attention to CEBMs and to waste materials in the fashion industry have made it difficult to relate the findings to a rich theoretical basis. This study has also not been able to conduct a comparative assessment of how the opportunities and challenges of SMEs in using waste materials align with or differ from those of larger brands.
Finally, while interviewing SMEs with respect to the research question produced direct insights into their perception of CEBM and the potential of waste materials, it by design narrowed the study’s focus and potential findings.
6.2 Further Research
Considering these limitations, this study can point to several promising avenues for future research.
While this study aims to understand fashion SMEs in their use of waste materials and their role in a systemic change, further research could shed light on how other stakeholders (consumers, larger brands, policy makers, educational institutions or NGOs) evaluate the potential of waste materials. A particular promising question would be whether these other stakeholders ascribe to SMEs roles in a sustainable transformation similar to those that SMEs ascribe to themselves, e.g. whether auto- and hetero-image align. Potential discrepancies between the two should be further investigated and suggestions made on how to resolve them. Such perception studies are of particular value because understanding each stakeholder’s reality is critical to establishing a successful cooperation, which a sustainable transformation depends on.
Moreover, it is essential to make innovative waste materials such as Piñatex, Vegea, Frumat, S. Cafe or Orange Fibers the object of academic inquiry, as they have so far only attracted the attention of practitioners. In particular, future research needs to assess the net sustainability score of individual waste materials. Reliable and accurately measured metrics must be developed to assess how sustainable, both environmentally and socially, these new waste materials really are. This includes, for example, monitoring the number of greenhouse emissions, assessing durability, recyclability, applicability to different designs, social manufacturing standards and other externalities, including rebound effects (like higher rates of consumption due to the assumption of “guilt free shopping”). In addition, the degree of consumer awareness and the changed perception about waste caused by the waste materials must be quantified to develop a comprehensive score.
Subsequently, the materials studied need to be compared with other types of waste materials to determine the most sustainable waste materials and to make practical suggestions that actually accelerate a sustainable transformation.
Having outlined the opportunities and challenges of fashion SMEs using waste materials, further research needs to identify whether and how fashion SMEs can overcome the above-mentioned challenges and facilitate the transition to CE. In the future, it will also be necessary to pinpoint, which opportunities and challenges arise mainly from the use of waste materials and which are due more to the size of the company (e.g.
certification, lack of financial resources, minimum quantity orders). On a related note, future research should also investigate whether and how the role of fashion SMEs in a sustainable transformation changes with increasing company and market size. Most pressing of all, researchers need to develop a common terminology of sustainable fashion to avoid confusion and misunderstandings. In collaboration with practitioners, academics should provide a comprehensive glossary – an ABC of sustainable fashion – to establish a common ground for sustainable fashion research and practice in the future.