DISCLOSURE ANALYSIS OF 7R♲ SUSTAINABILITY MATERIAL INDICATORS IN THE CIRCULAR FASHION INDUSTRY

Abstract

The fashion industry is one of the most polluting industries in the world, which makes it a candidate for attention towards what concerns the circular economy, along with other sustainability-related practices. This industry has great potential of disposing itself from the unsustainable linear business models that it adopted for a long period to more circular business models, which promotes closing the loop. In order to find out the circularity performance of the selected companies towards the disclosure of circular economy-related information in their corporate sustainability reports, this study transformed the quantitative material circularity performance indicators proposed by Rossi et. al (2020) into qualitative indicators, which makes it more inclusive for the analyzed companies, because not all of them report and disclose information respecting the same guidelines. Upon transforming the quantitative indicators into qualitative ones, the circularity performance was measured through a score-based method, which offers an insight perspective on data that makes possible a comparative analysis and also an interpretation of the extent of circular information disclosure. Seven circular material indicators were selected and analyzed for fifteen companies representing the European fashion industry. Results revealed that the higher average disclosure score is on the recyclability of materials and resources while the poor disclosed information in the sustainability reports is regarding remanufacture and refurbishment.

Keywords

• circular economy
• fashion industry
• circularity performance
• sustainability reporting