Strategy

Innovative Strategy

As outlined in the methods section, the following codes where analyzed and merged into one major theme: “business model”, “education”, “innovation”, “strategy”. The graph below presents how the codes were merged into the overarching theme, “innovative strategy”. I begin with the findings around the theme “innovative strategy”.

Model 1

First, the outcome of my empirical findings demonstrate that sustainability does not seem to

be a strategy enhancing competitive advantage in the fashion industry. Nearly most of the

experts interviewed agree on this point, as illustrated below. This finding is opposed to Porter

and Kramer’s theory (2006), who state that CSR can lead to competitive advantage,

innovation and opportunity. Saalmink however voices a critique when stating: “You have of

course the big problem if you talk about sustainability, when we look at fashion. That’s from

a PR perspective, green and sustainable is not very cool…And that’s actually strange

because I think it is fantastic. But that is still a fashion thing that it’s still, like I said before, it

still is so much about aesthetics and about the look. So people forget to discuss the

sustainable part, very much. It is actually very bizarre because for an image of a brand you

would think that green is good” (Appendix B6). In summary, Saalmink, who has worked in

the industry for over 10 years, is of the opinion that using sustainability as a branding

considerable benefits to a company, and can lead to shared value (Porter and Kramer, 2006), my research findings demonstrate contradictory findings. In fact, theory holds that it creates positive opportunity for business and society when a fashion company communicates sustainability through, for example, responsibility by joining the Global Compact or reporting about ecological initiatives that benefit society (Porter and Kramer, 2006). On the other hand, it seems communicating about sustainable efforts in the fashion industry will not have the expected and desired effect, due to the fact that, “green and sustainable is not very cool” (Appendix B6).

Furthermore, findings show that sustainability or slow fashion are not frequently externally communicated as part of a branding strategy. Most of the industry experts interviewed do not choose to use sustainability or slow fashion as part of a branding strategy for their companies. In reflection, this could imply that other experts do not calculate a positive competitive outcome when branding themselves with sustainability or slow fashion. In this context Aas says: “We do talk about slow fashion internally, but if you look at our website we don’t mention slow fashion, we don’t mention sustainability. There are mainly two main reasons to - not - do that. One is that, it’s just something that is like a part of what we do.

And secondly this thing about the complexity about sustainable fashion and that quite a lot of consumers don’t actually understand what it is and it is also about that we do feel that the word sustainable has been misused a lot…we are going towards a culture where the term sustainable fashion ends up having a negative impact because the consumers have heard it so much and there are a lot of brands misusing it a lot” (Appendix B2). Also Skall declares:

“We want to show that sustainable fashion is not boring anymore… I think a lot of companies are really afraid of, you know, marketing themselves with sustainability” (Appendix B5).

The examples above demonstrate that the investigated companies indeed engage with sustainability and identify with slow fashion, but it seems they are afraid of branding themselves with it. According to the experts, sustainability in the fashion industry is seen as

“boring” and “uncool” and, as previously mentioned, the meaning of sustainability is very

unclear, all of which confuses the end-consumer. According to Skall, companies tend not to

use sustainability as their selling point. Her reasoning is that sustainable fashion has the

connotation of being boring (Appendix B5). This belief is also confirmed earlier by Aas, who is of the opinion that the term ‘sustainable fashion’ has negative associations, and so is not used in his company (Appendix B2). Overall, the use of the term ‘sustainable fashion’ is avoided if possible, which supports the industry belief that it could have a negative economic outcome when used as a branding strategy.

In addition, the brand Won Hundred, aims at becoming more sustainable and already engages with CSR and some principles of the Global Compact, but they do not promote these facts externally. In this context Kastrati from Won Hundred says: “We are putting a lot more attention to CSR, but it’s not something that we are like promoting. We are just doing it internally and not only in our clothes but also in the way we drive the company... I know many companies are doing it to have a competitive advantage”. She further answers, Won Hundred would definitely use sustainability as a strategy: “when we are strong enough within our sustainability measures, we need to promote it and make people aware how important it actually is” (Appendix B9).

Won Hundred is engaging with elements from the Global Compact and aims at using CSR and sustainability as a way of simultaneously achieving social and economic benefits, which according to Porter and Kramer is valuing shared opportunity for business and society (2006). This way of including social responsibility in a company goes hand in hand with the theories around sustainability, which I outlined in literary framework earlier in the study.

Interestingly, Won Hundred is the only fashion company interested in branding themselves with sustainability, specifically CSR, when reaching the point of being fully satisfied with their effort towards sustainable improvements (Appendix B9).

In short, it is important to mention that my overall observations show the behavior of the

companies investigated does not correspond to Porter and Kramer’s theory (2005). My

earlier findings unveil that fashion companies in Denmark believe including the term

sustainability in their efforts at branding is not seen as an important strategy for competitive

success in fashion business - it is indeed the opposite, and viewed as an “uncool” concept

that ends up having a negative impact (Appendix B2, B5, B6). The theory about

sustainability and CSR might be applicable in a different context, but my findings indicate that added value from association with ‘sustainability’ might not apply in Denmark, or lead to higher value for companies here. This point will be taken up later in the discussion.

One of the experts who seems to encourage companies to engage with sustainable

strategies and stakeholder management is the PR manager from Agency V. Skou states, “I

think it matters to think sustainability into a brand and it is something we as a PR Agency

talk to our clients about, that this is the way they should think and this is the future” (Appendix

B1). Reflecting on Skou’s statement it seems to mean that sustainability could be a strategy

that can make brands successful, and some experts can see that sustainability will be more

and more important in the future. This argument is supported in theory by Niinimäki, who

recommends that strategic sustainability like CSR, should be followed by the fashion

industry (2015). According to Niinmäki, open communication, and showing commitment and

responsibility can earn stakeholders’ trust (2015). But a too limited approach can result in a

negative outcome, like being identified with “greenwashing” (Niinmäki, 2015). In addition,

my literary findings demonstrate that stakeholder management and engaging with

sustainable responsibility as when engaging with the Global Compact or TBL, can become

an innovative strategy building up and maintaining a good reputation, leading to success

(Cornelissen, 2011).