Building Sustainability in Textile and Apparel Supply Chains

Abstract

Textile and apparel supply chains have emerged as environmentally unsustainable and pollution-causing, responsible for the depletion of resources and the fourth-largest cause of greenhouse gas emissions in the environment. With the hub of textile and apparel production centralized around developing economies, the supply chain faces several challenges, with organizations focusing on triple-bottom-line performance considering the social and environmental impact of the supply chains over and above their financial viability. Thus, seven critical requirements for an effective supply chain model to meet the triple bottom line are reduction in textile waste and emissions, reduction in energy intensity, maximum usage of renewable and sustainable energy resources, reuse and recycling of materials, measurement, and assessment of the impact of the supply chain on the ecosystem, standard measuring procedures evaluating the sustainability performance of an organization and environmental consciousness permeating the organizational culture.