Tackling Climate Change with End-of-Life Circular Fashion Practices—Remade in Italy with Amore

Abstract

The fashion industry makes a sizeable contribution to climate change. Research on grand challenges has now gained momentum in the management literature, given the vast array of grand challenges that are now globally affecting industries, societies and governments, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and global warming. By coupling paradox theory with the literature on circular economy, this paper investigates the end-of-life circular practices implemented by ‘born-circular’ Italian fashion companies. The paper focuses on upcycling and remanufacturing, which have been neglected in the literature and whose widespread implementation has been deemed suitable to tackle climate change. The analysis of several in-depth interviews with companies and industry experts results in the development of a process model. The model provides granular insights into the environmental value created by the implementation of end-of-life circular practices by fashion firms in their quest to tackle climate change. The study both suggests that paradox theory is likely to have broader applicability to reconcile a wide set of managerial and societal issues and also supports the argument that overcoming an intrinsic paradox could lead to a strategic pivoting within an industry that might yield a paradigm shift.