Traceability the New Eco-Label in the Slow-Fashion Industry?—Consumer Perceptions and Micro-Organisations Responses

Abstract

This article focuses on eco-labels from the point of view of consumers and experts/owner-managers of micro-organisations. The analysis maps the 15 most common standardisations within the UK's fashion industry and elaborates on their commonalities and differences, before exploring the perceptions held by both consumers and micro-companies. This paper presents preliminary findings of a wider research project with emphasis on the potential for future research and marketing implications. The study is interpretative in nature and provides detailed results that contribute to an understudied area.

Contribution of traceability towards attaining sustainability in the textile sector

“…A lot of research in the past has been focused to attain sustainable supply chain network from technical and organizational aspects (Chi 2011;Cucchiella et al 2012;De Brito et al 2008;Nagurney and Yu 2012;Seuring and Müller 2008).From the technical aspect, certifications and indices designate the product in a certain category such as organic or fair production practice while a detailed information of sustainability practices or influencing factors go missing (Goswami 2014). Concerning this, traceability has emerged as a feasible solution which can not only be used to indicate the environmental sustainability aspect of the product but also other customer-concerned tangible and intangible product characteristics such as source of individual raw material used in production, history of individual component, and product footprints in the supply chain can be conveyed to the end-users (Agrawal et al 2016;Goswami 2014;Guercini and Runfola 2009;Henninger 2015;. Furthermore, traceability acts as a valuable mean to verify the product related sustainability claims, thus helping companies to advance their sustainability goals (A report by UN Global Compact Office 2014).…”

“…This definition combines economic, social, and ecological aspects together under the umbrella of sustainability and has been widely used in the literature. The retail brands use different techniques to convey the sustainability information to consumers in various forms, which include certification from third party, special logos, and traceability information (Henninger 2015). A lot of research in the past has been focused to attain sustainable supply chain network from technical and organizational aspects (Chi 2011;Cucchiella et al 2012;De Brito et al 2008;Nagurney and Yu 2012;Seuring and Müller 2008).From the technical aspect, certifications and indices designate the product in a certain category such as organic or fair production practice while a detailed information of sustainability practices or influencing factors go missing (Goswami 2014).…”

A Product Line Analysis for Eco-Designed Fashion Products: Evidence from an Outdoor Sportswear Brand

“…Patagonia is an outdoor sportswear brand that has been greatly examined in the extant literature [9,[41][42][43][44][45]. Patagonia was founded by Yvon Choujnard in California in 1973.…”

“…The literature has been shown that eco-labels enable consumers to receive product sustainability information and educate consumers' sustainability awareness [44]. Patagonia uses eco-labels such as Blue-sign and Fair Trade-certified in its product line development [50].…”

Developing a Framework for Traceability Implementation in the Textile Supply Chain

“…For the current practice in clothing retail, the most of traceability information is limited to the country-of-origin-which is conveyed using printed labels. However, according to Henninger [21], these labels are not enough to convey the customer-expected traceability information. Hence the implementation of information exchange based traceability is expected to inevitably emerge in the future for clothing brands.…”