Sustainability management in apparel & footwear supply chain

Abstract

Self-regulatory Code of Conduct has widely been adopted by international brands to manage CSR issues in apparel and footwear supply chain for the last 2 decades. Increasingly, more apparel and footwear brands started to expand CSR scope to include environmental management in their supply chain. However, only very few international brands have disclosed their efforts on environmental management in their supply chain. This study aims to find out how apparel and footwear brands implement environmental management in their supply chain. Furthermore, what motivates them to carry out environmental management, and lastly, what challenges the industry encounters in carrying out effective environmental management. Primary and secondary data research were carried out in this study. Primary research, in a form of self-administered survey, was conducted for 11 brands and 15 of their respective suppliers. Secondary research was conducted through desktop research to gather additional information from brands, NGOs, academic studies and news.

The study revealed environmental management in apparel and footwear supply chain is becoming more important. However, most of the brands’ approaches on environmental management are loose (i.e. lack industry-wide sustainably environmental management strategy), and small in scope (i.e. first tier supplier only). It is suggested apparel and footwear brands should improve effectiveness of environmental management program in their supply chain, by applying different implementation strategies internally, with both brands’ and suppliers’ governments, suppliers as well as their stakeholders.