Barriers to sustainable development in the fashion industry: Supply chain complexity and consumers' attitude-behavior gap

Abstract

Sustainability has become the world's megatrend. Many companies are under pressure from governments and the public to implement sustainable business practices. Unlike the food industry, where demand for sustainable products is relatively easy to achieve because food directly affects the health of consumers, in the fashion industry this is not the case. The aim of the paper is to analyze barriers in the development of a sustainable fashion industry, including: the complexity of establishing a sustainable supply chain, unclear certification and labeling system, high prices of sustainable fashion products, the high growth rate of the fast fashion industry, low consumer awareness of the importance of sustainability in the fashion industry which leads to a gap between consumer attitudes and buying behavior, and low demand for sustainable fashion products. In addition, sustainable fashion is a contradictory term. The whole point of fashion is a change of styles from season to season, which in turn accelerates purchases. This is contrary to the concept of sustainable fashion, which implies a slowdown in consumption. Meta-analysis was used as the main research method in this paper to integrate the findings of many studies and direct prospective research.