Regenerating Threads: Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Textile Industry

This paper investigates the challenges of implementing regenerative practices in the textile industry. With the latter being recognised as one of the main pollutant industries, regenerative systems offer a promising solution to mitigate environmental impacts. However, deploying such approaches involves significant barriers that include high cost, long transition periods and the lack of standardised regulations. The study employs a multiple-case study approach, examining textile companies in Italy and the UK integrating regenerative agricultural practices into their operations. Besides the already identified challenges highlighted in the existing but still relatively scant literature on the topic, further barriers emerged from the conducted interviews, such as the underestimated issue of the social aspect of sustainability, the dependency of skills development on the specific context and the need to integrate organic practices with regenerative ones to properly embark in the sustainability path for producing more sustainable fibres. This paper contributes to theory and practice by offering empirical insights from the textile sector and proposing strategies to overcome sustainability barriers, emphasising the integration of regenerative and organic practices to advance the industry’s sustainability.