Practices for environmental sustainability in the fashion supply chain

: Stakeholders’ and customers’ pressure on sustainability, coupled with business drivers as high price volatility and short term discretionary rationed access to production capacity and resources, has pushed companies to transform general environmental sustainability concepts into business practices. However, a few contributions have offered a comprehensive and structured analysis of the different practices that have been employed in the fashion supply chain to reduce its environmental impact. This work presents a comprehensive framework for identifying and classifying environmental sustainability practices and it can be used to identify the gaps and launch new directions for further research activities. Particularly this work is the starting point for a future research regarding a representation of the sustainability practices implemented in the Italian fashion companies operating in textile, clothing and leather sectors. Design/methodology/approach: Through a systematic literature review, the theoretical model underlying the research is built. In particular, such a model contains the existing types of sustainability practices, divided into the three dimensions of product, process and supply chain, that have been developed by companies, public institutions and scholars. Originality/value: This paper contributes to enhance the debate on sustainability. A model that includes the practices for sustainability, classified into product, process and supply chain, is developed. Since it does not refer to a specific sector, it can be used as a reference model for mapping sustainability initiatives of different industries.