sustainability 06 06236

Sustainability 2014, 6, 6236-6249; doi:10.3390/su6096236
OPEN ACCESS

sustainability
ISSN 2071-1050 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Article

Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain: Lessons from H&M
Bin Shen
Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University, Shanghai 200051, China;
E-Mail: [e-mail]; Tel./Fax: [phone]
Received: 15 July 2014; in revised form: 15 August 2014 / Accepted: 19 August 2014 /
Published: 11 September 2014

Abstract: Sustainability is significantly important for fashion business due to consumers’ increasing awareness of environment. When a fashion company aims to promote sustainability, the main linkage is to develop a sustainable supply chain. This paper contributes to current knowledge of sustainable supply chain in the textile and clothing industry. We first depict the structure of sustainable fashion supply chain including eco-material preparation, sustainable manufacturing, green distribution, green retailing, and ethical consumers based on the extant literature. We study the case of the Swedish fast fashion company, H&M, which has constructed its sustainable supply chain in developing eco-materials, providing safety training, monitoring sustainable manufacturing, reducing carbon emission in distribution, and promoting eco-fashion. Moreover, based on the secondary data and analysis, we learn the lessons of H&M’s sustainable fashion supply chain from the country perspective: (1) the H&M’s sourcing managers may be more likely to select suppliers in the countries with lower degrees of human wellbeing; (2) the H&M’s supply chain manager may set a higher level of inventory in a country with a higher human wellbeing; and (3) the H&M CEO may consider the degrees of human wellbeing and economic wellbeing, instead of environmental wellbeing when launching the online shopping channel in a specific country.
Keywords: supply chain; sustainable fashion; fashion operations; sustainability

1. Introduction
Global

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