UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL

ESCOLA DE ENGENHARIA
PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ENGENHARIA DE PRODUÇÃO

INOVAÇÃO SUSTENTÁVEL EM MODELOS DE

NEGÓCIOS NA INDÚSTRIA DA MODA

Bruna Villa Todeschini

Porto Alegre, 2018

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UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DO RIO GRANDE DO SUL

ESCOLA DE ENGENHARIA
PROGRAMA DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM ENGENHARIA DE PRODUÇÃO

INOVAÇÃO SUSTENTÁVEL EM MODELOS DE

NEGÓCIOS NA INDÚSTRIA DA MODA

Bruna Villa Todeschini

Orientador: Prof. Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, Dr.

Banca Examinadora:

Profª. Ângela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz, Drª.

DEPROT/UFRGS

Profª. Daniela Callegaro de Menezes, Drª.

PPGA/UFRGS

Profª Janine Fleith de Medeiros, Drª.

PPGAdm/UPF

Dissertação submetida ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de

Produção como requisito parcial à obtenção do título de
MESTRE EM ENGENHARIA DE PRODUÇÃO

Porto Alegre, 29 de março de 2018

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Esta dissertação foi julgada adequada para a obtenção do título de Mestre em

Engenharia de Produção e aprovada em sua forma final pelo Orientador e pela Banca
Examinadora designada pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção.

__________________________________
Prof. Marcelo Nogueira Cortimiglia, Dr.
PPGEP / UFRGS
Orientador

___________________________________
Prof. Flávio Sanson Fogliatto, Dr.
Coordenador PPGEP / UFRGS

Banca Examinadora:

Profª. Ângela de Moura Ferreira Danilevicz, Drª.

DEPROT/UFRGS

Profª. Daniela Callegaro de Menezes, Drª.

PPGA/UFRGS

Profª Janine Fleith de Medeiros, Drª.

PPGAdm/UPF
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AGRADECIMENTOS

Agradeço primeiramente a Deus, por todas as experiências que vivi, pessoas que conheci e
conteúdos que estudei até tomar a decisão de fazer o mestrado e por tudo que vivi ao longo
desse período.

Agradeço aos meus pais pelo amor em todas as etapas da minha vida, pela formação de
valores e pelo apoio desde sempre!

Ao Felipe, agradeço pelas conversas e pelo apoio às minhas escolhas profissionais.

Ao Diego, pelo carinho e compreensão ao longo desse período, mas principalmente pelo
incentivo a sempre buscar o melhor de mim e nunca me acomodar.

Ao meu avô Julio, pelo exemplo de que todos os dias podemos aprender algo novo, mesmo
com todas as dificuldades que podemos enfrentar para isso.

Agradeço ao Marcelo, pela abertura em aceitar o meu tema de pesquisa e por exercer a função
de um verdadeiro orientador, trabalhando em conjunto para que atingíssemos os objetivos da
pesquisa.

À Daniela e ao Antonio, pelas contribuições na primeira fase da pesquisa.

À professora Ângela, pela oportunidade de trabalhar junto a ela em sala de aula na disciplina
de Empreendedorismo e Inovação. Obrigada pela rica experiência!

Aos colegas do PPGEP e do Grupo de Pesquisa em Tecnologia e Inovação pelas conversas,

confraternizações e incentivo durante o mestrado. Em especial, agradeço aos colegas Diego
Souza e Fernando Lermen pelas discussões e pelo bom humor para levar nossos projetos
adiante!

Muito obrigada a todos!

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RESUMO

Esta pesquisa tem como pano de fundo o setor de moda, que passou por diversas
transformações ao longo das últimas décadas, estabelecendo o fast fashion como seu principal
modus operandi. Apesar do crescimento possibilitado por esse modelo, houve um
consequente aumento de impactos ambientais e sociais no setor. Em função disso, há uma
crescente demanda por produtos e serviços que gerem menores impactos, modificando os
modelos de negócios do setor. Portanto, o problema de pesquisa abordado neste trabalho é
“como desenvolver modelos de negócio inovadores e sustentáveis no setor da moda?”. Deste
questionamento derivam os objetivos da pesquisa, que são: (i) avaliar como ocorrem as
inovações em sustentabilidade no setor; (ii) analisar de que maneira essas inovações se
manifestam para o mercado; (iii) identificar, em nível agregado, oportunidades e desafios que
tipicamente influenciam o sucesso de modelos de negócio inovadores e sustentáveis na
indústria da moda; e (iv) realizar uma análise quantitativa de inovação sustentável em
empresas da indústria da moda. Para atingir esses objetivos, a pesquisa foi dividida em duas
grandes etapas. A primeira delas, apresentada no artigo 1, buscou na literatura e na prática
conceitos relacionados a modelos de negócios que buscam a sustentabilidade na moda. Foram
feitas uma revisão sistemática da literatura, entrevistas com especialistas e consultas a sites
especializados, gerando-se um framework de tendências e direcionadores de inovação
sustentável. Oito estudos de casos de empresas brasileiras e italianas ilustraram o
funcionamento desses drivers. Ao final, foram levantados desafios e oportunidades para
negócios que buscam a sustentabilidade na moda. Na segunda etapa, presente no artigo 2,
buscou-se analisar casos de empresas que utilizam os direcionadores apontados no artigo 1
numa análise quantitativa baseada em uma escala de inovatividade em sustentabilidade. Os
resultados apontam para uma maior facilidade dos negócios em incorporar conceitos de
responsabilidade social e economia circular e uma dificuldade em escalar modelos de
negócios que utilizam matérias-primas naturais. Ao final, um framework de caminho
ilustrativo para a sustentabilidade foi gerado para negócios do setor.

Palavras-chave: modelo de negócio; sustentabilidade; inovação; moda.

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ABSTRACT

This research has as a background the fashion industry, which has undergone several
transformations over the last decades, establishing fast fashion as its main business model.
Despite the growth that this model made possible, there was an increase in environmental and
social impacts caused by this expansion. As a result, there is an increasing demand for
products and services that generate smaller impacts, causing changes in the business models
of the sector. Therefore, the research problem addressed in this paper is "how to develop
innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry?". From this question, the
objectives of the research are derived, which are: (i) to evaluate how innovations in
sustainability occur in the sector; (ii) to analyze how these innovations are manifested to the
market; (iii) to identify in an aggregate level opportunities and challenges that typically
influence the success of innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry;
and (iv) to generate a quantitative analysis of sustainable innovation in companies in the
fashion industry. To achieve these goals, the research was divided into two major steps. The
first one, presented in article 1, sought in the literature and in practice work some concepts
related to sustainable business models in fashion. A systematic review of the literature,
interviews with specialists and consultations with specialized websites were carried out,
generating a framework of trends and drivers of sustainable innovation for this sector. Eight
case studies of Brazilian and Italian companies illustrated the operation of these drivers. In the
end, challenges and opportunities for businesses that seek sustainability in fashion were
raised. In the second stage, presented in article 2, we sought to analyze cases of companies
that use the drivers pointed out in article 1 in a quantitative analysis based on a scale of
innovation in sustainability. The results show a greater ease for business to incorporate
concepts of social responsibility and circular economy and a difficulty in scaling business
models that use natural raw materials. In the end, an illustrative framework of a pathway for
sustainability was generated for business in this sector.

Keywords: sustainability; business model; innovation; fashion.

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SUMÁRIO

RESUMO................................................................................................................................... 5

ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................................. 6

LISTA DE FIGURAS............................................................................................................... 9

LISTA DE TABELAS ............................................................................................................ 10

1 INTRODUÇÃO ................................................................................................................ 11
1.1 Tema e Problema ........................................................................................................ 12
1.2 Objetivos ..................................................................................................................... 12
1.3 Justificativa e Relevância ............................................................................................ 13
1.4 Procedimentos Metodológicos .................................................................................... 15
1.5 Delimitação do Estudo ................................................................................................ 16
1.6 Estrutura da Dissertação .............................................................................................. 17
1.7 Referências Bibliográficas .......................................................................................... 18

2 ARTIGO I - INNOVATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS IN THE

FASHION INDUSTRY: ENTREPRENEURIAL DRIVERS, OPPORTUNITIES
AND CHALLENGES ........................................................................................................... 21
2.1 Fast Fashion: are there alternatives? ........................................................................... 22
2.2 How the research was performed ................................................................................ 24
2.3 Macro-trends shaping the competitive arena for fashion businesses .......................... 26
2.3.1 Consumer awareness ........................................................................................ 26
2.3.2 Circular Economy ............................................................................................. 27
2.3.3 Social Responsibility ........................................................................................ 27
2.3.4 Sharing Economy and Collaborative Consumption ......................................... 28
2.3.5 Technological Innovation ................................................................................. 29
2.4 Drivers of sustainability-related innovation in fashion business models .................... 30
2.5 Fashion startups focused on sustainability .................................................................. 37
2.5.1 Preza ................................................................................................................. 37
2.5.2 Revoada ............................................................................................................ 38
2.5.3 Contextura ........................................................................................................ 38
2.5.4 Armadio Verde ................................................................................................. 39
2.5.5 Orange Fiber ..................................................................................................... 39
2.5.6 Lanieri ............................................................................................................... 40
2.5.7 ELSE Corp ........................................................................................................ 40
2.6 What entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities lie ahead? ................................... 40
2.6.1 Challenges ........................................................................................................ 40
2.6.1.1 Rethink the design phase ................................................................... 41
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2.6.1.2 Consumer education .......................................................................... 41

2.6.1.3 Consumer expectations ...................................................................... 42

2.6.1.4 Aligning values along the supply chain ............................................. 43

2.6.2 Opportunities .................................................................................................... 44
2.6.2.1 Enhance focus on CSR ...................................................................... 44

2.6.2.2 Service-based business models .......................................................... 44

2.6.2.3 Monetizing voluntary simplicity ........................................................ 45

2.7 Implications for fashion entrepreneurship .................................................................. 45
2.8 References ................................................................................................................... 48

3 ARTIGO II - ANALYSIS OF SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES IN BUSINESS

MODELS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY...................................................................... 54
3.1 Fashion businesses and its impacts ............................................................................. 54
3.2 Business models and sustainability in fashion ............................................................ 56
3.3 Method ........................................................................................................................ 59
3.4 Results and Discussion................................................................................................ 62
3.4.1 Initial analysis of the cases ............................................................................... 62
3.4.2 How trends and drivers are manifested in the cases ......................................... 65
3.4.3 Analyzing and discussing the results ................................................................ 68
3.5 Contributions of this study .......................................................................................... 72
3.6 References ................................................................................................................... 73
3.7 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 78
3.7.1 Appendix A – Correlation index between characteristics and drivers ............. 78
3.7.2 Appendix B – Correlation index among drivers ............................................... 79
3.7.3 Appendix C – Correlation index between characteristics and trends ............... 80

4 CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS .......................................................................................... 81

4.1 Conclusões e Contribuições ........................................................................................ 81
4.2 Implicações e Sugestões de Pesquisas Futuras ........................................................... 82
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LISTA DE FIGURAS

Figure 1 - Sustainable trends and drivers for business model innovation ................................ 58
Figure 2 - Method used in the research .................................................................................... 62
Figure 3 - Illustrative path for sustainability in fashion business ............................................. 71
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LISTA DE TABELAS

Table 1 - Trends and drivers of sustainability-related business model innovation for fashion
businesses ......................................................................................................................... 36
Table 2 - Sustainability scale .................................................................................................... 61
Table 3 - Codification for the business models characteristics ................................................ 61
Table 4 - Cases Evaluation ....................................................................................................... 66
Table 5 - Evaluation of the characteristics of the case studies ................................................. 69
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1 INTRODUÇÃO

A mesma indústria que foi uma das precursoras da Revolução Industrial com
seus teares no século XVIII é também um grande setor na atualidade. O valor de
mercado global da indústria de moda e vestuário é de US$ 3 trilhões, representando
cerca de 2% do PIB mundial e empregando cerca de 58 milhões de pessoas no mundo
(Fashion United, 2015). Por ter grandes proporções e ser uma indústria antiga, há
diversos tipos de empresas que atuam na área, desde pequenos ateliês, passando por
confecções e fábricas, até chegar aos grandes grupos varejistas ao redor do mundo.
Exemplo desses players são o grupo espanhol Inditex, com valor de mercado de US$
112 bilhões, a americana Nike (US$ 91 bilhões) e o grupo sueco H&M (US$ 40
bilhões) (Forbes, 2017).

Nas últimas décadas, essa indústria passou por transformações que

viabilizaram a expansão do modelo de negócio chamado fast fashion, que segundo
Cachon e Swinney (2011) é um modelo que combina produções pequenas e lead time
de produção curto para que, tão logo determinada característica se torne tendência, seja
possível entregar produtos relacionados em loja, melhorando a reatividade das empresas
de varejo. Um dos objetivos do fast fashion é gerar micro-estações ao longo do ano ao
invés das tradicionais outono/inverno e primavera/verão para que a cada semana o
consumidor encontre novos produtos em loja. Resultado disso é o aumento de 60% no
consumo de peças por consumidor entre 2000 e 2014 (Remy et al., 2016).

Para viabilizar este modelo, a cadeia de valor na indústria da moda precisou ser
modificada, passando de arranjos verticalizados, nos quais grande parte das atividades
(extração de matéria-prima, produção, logística, vendas, etc.) ficava sob
responsabilidade de uma mesma empresa, para modelos horizontais, havendo uma
descentralização de empresas responsáveis pelas etapas do processo. Essa mudança
possibilitou a terceirização da produção para regiões menos desenvolvidas e a
consequente redução de custos associados, permitindo o crescimento de redes de varejo
ao redor do mundo (Wieland e Handfield, 2013). Porém, este mesmo movimento
provocou o aumento de problemas sociais e ambientais, sobretudo nas regiões onde são
realizadas a extração de matéria-prima e a produção das peças.
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1.1 TEMA E PROBLEMA

Esta pesquisa está focada na compreensão de aspectos de modelos de negócio

nos atuais ambientes competitivos, que são caracterizados por intensas mudanças
sociais, tecnológicas, ambientais e econômicas. Em função disso, uma discussão
importante para esta pesquisa é a introdução de inovações no mercado por novos
negócios e a adaptação de incumbentes a essas inovações. Esta situação é
particularmente importante no setor da moda, no qual o fast fashion, modelo de negócio
predominante, tem sido desafiado em função de seus fortes impactos negativos, tanto
sociais quanto ambientais (De Brito et al., 2008). Com isso, o tema deste estudo está
centrado na interseção entre os assuntos de inovação, sustentabilidade e modelos de
negócios limitados à indústria da moda.

Neste sentido, o problema de pesquisa abordado neste estudo tem como ponto
de partida algumas tendências sociais, econômicas, ambientais, tecnológicas e culturais
que se manifestam pela maior preocupação da sociedade com a sustentabilidade social e
ambiental. A partir disso, se revela a necessidade de desenvolvimento e adoção de
atitudes e comportamentos mais alinhados com tais demandas e expectativas da
sociedade por parte dos negócios estabelecidos e entrantes no mercado.

Em função do tamanho deste setor, dos problemas sociais e ambientais

decorrentes do modelo atual e das lacunas de mercado existentes para o
desenvolvimento de negócios sustentáveis, o problema de pesquisa a ser abordado neste
projeto é: como desenvolver modelos de negócio inovadores e sustentáveis no setor da
moda? A partir deste problema, são desdobrados os objetivos da pesquisa na próxima
seção.

1.2 OBJETIVOS

Dado o contexto do modelo atual de atuação do setor de moda e os problemas

associados à falta de sustentabilidade social e ambiental, o objetivo geral desta pesquisa
é identificar mecanismos e direcionadores de inovação sustentável e demonstrar como
esses fatores podem ser aplicados em modelos de negócios do setor da moda.
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Em particular, a pesquisa tem três objetivos específicos em relação à inovação
em modelos de negócio sustentáveis na indústria da moda. O primeiro deles é (i) avaliar
como ocorrem as inovações em sustentabilidade no setor e o segundo é (ii) analisar de
que maneira elas se manifestam para o mercado. A partir dessa análise, como terceiro
objetivo específico, se busca (iii) identificar, em nível agregado, oportunidades e
desafios que tipicamente influenciam o sucesso de modelos de negócio inovadores e
sustentáveis na indústria da moda. Como quarto objetivo, se busca (iv) realizar uma
análise quantitativa de inovação sustentável em empresas da indústria da moda.

1.3 JUSTIFICATIVA E RELEVÂNCIA

Esta pesquisa tem relevância tanto acadêmica quanto prática. Do ponto de vista
teórico, esta pesquisa pode contribuir em diversas questões ainda em aberto na interface
das literaturas sobre inovação em modelos de negócios, inovação sustentável e
empreendedorismo. Além das contribuições teóricas, a pesquisa pode trazer inúmeras
contribuições de ordem prática, visto que mudanças no modo de consumo nos últimos
anos têm proporcionado significativo destaque aos modelos de negócios que buscam ser
mais sustentáveis dentro do setor de moda. Neste sentido, a pesquisa tem relevância na
medida em que apresenta drivers de inovação sustentável e discute a aplicação desses
drivers em estudos de casos, propondo desafios e oportunidades para o setor e gerando
relações entre tendências, drivers e características de modelos de negócio do setor,
traçando perfis de atuação para negócios da área. Espera-se, com isso, que essa pesquisa
sirva como um guia para empreendedores que busquem inovar de maneira sustentável
na indústria da moda.

Em relação às contribuições teóricas, os resultados da pesquisa podem lançar

nova luz sobre a problemática dos modelos de negócio baseados em sustentabilidade.
De modo geral, a literatura aponta uma série de desafios para o sucesso de modelos de
negócio baseados em valores típicos de sustentabilidade ambiental e social, tais como a
necessidade por articulação de propostas de valor que contemplem trade-offs entre
desempenho ótimo e/ou necessário versus efeitos ambientais e/ou sociais (incluindo a
possibilidade de sobrevivência temporária em situações de desequilíbrio financeiro), a
solução de efeitos de aprisionamento associados a dependências de cadeias de
fornecedores ou ecossistemas de infraestrutura não otimizados para a sustentabilidade e
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a elaboração de mecanismos de receita e interface com clientes que contemplem as
particularidades de dinâmicas de relacionamento associadas com sustentabilidade como
a co-criação, a cooperação e a desmaterialização (Boons e Lüdeke-Freund, 2013). Além
disso, a inovação sustentável em modelos de negócio se caracteriza como um tipo de
eco-inovação (Carrillo-Hermosilla et al., 2010) para a qual ainda não se conhece o nível
de sistematização das práticas e processos de geração de inovação sustentável em
modelos de negócio (Boons e Lüdeke-Freund, 2013).

Outra problemática central de modelos de negócio inovadores baseados em

sustentabilidade diz respeito à proposição de valor: se fortemente vinculada aos fatores
típicos de sustentabilidade ambiental e social, é possível que seja restrita a nichos de
consumidores com altos índices de preocupação socioambiental, o que pode limitar o
potencial de escalabilidade do negócio. Porém, até o momento, a literatura que aborda
tal problema de pesquisa é fragmentada e baseada em estudos de caso individuais, com
baixo potencial de geração de proposições que possam embasar a tomada de decisão de
negócios e a formulação de políticas públicas. Mais especificamente, a literatura sobre
modelos de negócio que incorporam inovação sustentável na moda está em construção,
sendo baseada em observações pontuais de casos de sucesso (ex. Roos et al., 2016;
Pedersen & Andersen, 2015; Dissanayake & Sinha, 2012). Exceções a esse contexto são
os estudos de Laasch (2017), que propõe uma análise sobre modelos de negócios
sustentáveis além da relação comercial, incluindo a lógica de alinhamento de valores
entre empresa e clientes, e Pal & Gander (2018), que analisam no setor de moda a
relação entre modelos de negócios sustentáveis e a escalabilidade do negócio.

Contudo, ainda não é claro que tipo de padrão predomina em quais condições
organizacionais e contingenciais, inclusive quando considerada a inovação em modelos
de negócio em direção à sustentabilidade (Inigo et al., 2017). Como os determinantes e
mecanismos de inovação em modelo de negócio se comportam em um setor específico
cujas bases de criação de valor envolvem intangibilidade e criatividade, tal qual o setor
da moda, são questões pouco abordadas que esta pesquisa busca responder.
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1.4 PROCEDIMENTOS METODOLÓGICOS

A pesquisa realizada se caracteriza, sobretudo, como pesquisa aplicada e

exploratória. Ao mesmo tempo, possui um viés prescritivo, visto que os resultados
finais poderão ser usados como guia de orientação para tomada de decisão para
negócios, como diretrizes para desenho e redesenho de modelos de negócios e
formulação de estratégia competitiva. Quanto à abordagem, trata-se de uma pesquisa
multimétodos, pois combina, em diferentes níveis e momentos, procedimentos e fontes
de dados de natureza qualitativa e quantitativa. Dessa forma, buscou-se aliar as
vantagens da pesquisa qualitativa, sobretudo associadas a um entendimento mais
profundo das dinâmicas envolvidas em fenômenos complexos e multifacetados como a
inovação de modelos de negócios, com as vantagens da pesquisa quantitativa, que no
caso específico se expressam no teste de proposições e hipóteses levantadas durante as
etapas qualitativas. Em linhas gerais, a pesquisa se desdobra em duas etapas: (i)
identificação de determinantes e mecanismos de inovação sustentável em modelos de
negócio na indústria da moda; e (ii) proposição de escalas de inovação sustentável e
análise quantitativa.

A primeira etapa consiste na elaboração de proposições a respeito dos

determinantes e mecanismos que direcionam inovação sustentável em modelos de
negócio na indústria da moda. Inicialmente, foram utilizados em conjunto dois
procedimentos metodológicos: uma revisão sistemática de literatura e consulta a
especialistas empregando entrevistas semiestruturadas. Com isso, foi possível criar uma
lista de determinantes e mecanismos chamados drivers de inovação sustentável
agregados em blocos de grandes tendências sociais, econômicas, ambientais,
tecnológicas e culturais que se manifestam na sociedade em relação a questões de
sustentabilidade. Após isso, foram realizados alguns estudos de caso para fins de
exploração sobre como os drivers identificados atuam em modelos de negócio de
empresas reais. Estudos de caso são frequentemente usados em estágios exploratórios
de formação de teoria, sobretudo na formulação e teste de proposições gerais (Voss et
al., 2002; Gerring, 2004; Eisenhardt e Graebner, 2007). Ao final desta etapa, com os
resultados advindos de fontes teóricas e práticas, foram propostos desafios e
oportunidades que caracterizam o ambiente de inovação sustentável no setor da moda.
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Na segunda etapa, foram realizados 21 estudos de casos com foco na
verificação de práticas relacionadas às tendências e drivers de inovação sustentável
propostos na primeira etapa. Para isso, foi elaborada uma escala de atuação para os
drivers propostos, identificando níveis de atuação em relação a práticas do mercado.
Desta forma, foi possível combinar as vantagens de análises transversais típica de
pesquisas quantitativas com a análise de cada caso sobre fenômenos organizacionais
típica da pesquisa qualitativa. Esta etapa foi desdobrada em seis atividades de pesquisa,
a saber: (i) preparação das entrevistas; (ii) aplicação das entrevistas; (iii) criação da
escala; (iv) avaliação dos casos; (v) validação dos resultados; (vi) análise dos resultados;
(vii) conclusões.

1.5 DELIMITAÇÃO DO ESTUDO

A pesquisa descrita nesta dissertação está focada em inovações sustentáveis, ou

seja, são introduções de novidades no mercado que consideram a premissa de
desenvolvimento sustentável. Segundo o Relatório Brundtland, desenvolvimento
sustentável é aquele que atende as necessidades do presente sem comprometer a
capacidade das gerações futuras de atenderem as suas próprias necessidades (Nações
Unidas, 1987).

Dentro desse contexto, o estudo buscou compreender como inovações

sustentáveis são aplicadas não somente em produto, processo ou outra função dentro de
uma empresa. De maneira mais ampla, foram consideradas inovações sustentáveis que
geram algum tipo de impacto no modelo de negócio, que segundo Osterwalder e
Pigneur (2010) é a maneira como um negócio cria, entrega e captura valor. Dessa
forma, as inovações geradas no modelo de negócio têm uma natureza mais sistêmica no
que tange o alinhamento do negócio (pela criação, entrega e captura de valor) com
aquilo que o cliente espera em relação às suas necessidades (Velu & Stiles, 2013).

Uma das principais delimitações da pesquisa diz respeito ao setor econômico

em que foi aplicada. A indústria da moda foi escolhida como grande cenário para a
pesquisa em função de ser um dos setores econômicos que mais gera impactos sociais
(Dickson e Eckman, 2006) e no meio ambiente (De Brito et al., 2008). Em função disso,
cada vez mais empresas buscam incorporar atributos de sustentabilidade em seu negócio
 17
(França et al, 2017), o que torna fundamental estudar o assunto dentro deste setor.
Dentro desse contexto, uma delimitação subsequente se relaciona com a necessidade de
serem trabalhados novos modelos de atuação por parte das empresas desse ramo a fim
de gerarem menores impactos sociais e ambientais em suas atividades. Por isso, o
estudo foca em questões relacionadas à sustentabilidade.

Em função do panorama apresentado, foram consideradas atuações que

utilizam o conceito de inovação como propulsor da criação de atributos relacionados a
modelos de negócios sustentáveis para a indústria da moda. Nesta pesquisa, não foram
consideradas práticas já estabelecidas no mercado voltadas a este assunto, mas sim o
surgimento de novas práticas e abordagens para uma moda mais sustentável.

As delimitações seguintes consideram as escolhas de método desta pesquisa. A

pesquisa partiu de uma revisão sistemática da literatura, considerando três plataformas
de pesquisa internacionais. Além disso, a busca por palavras-chave dessa fase
desconsiderou pesquisas focadas especificamente no desenvolvimento de fibras e
materiais têxteis. Outra delimitação desta etapa é a busca por pesquisas publicadas até o
momento em que foi realizada, no início de 2017. Em relação à segunda fase da
pesquisa, foram feitos estudos de casos com empresas numa amostra não representativa
e, por isso, os resultados não devem ser generalizados para situações de outras empresas
inseridas em contextos similares.

1.6 ESTRUTURA DA DISSERTAÇÃO

Esta dissertação foi dividida em quatro capítulos. Inicialmente foram

apresentados o problema de pesquisa, tema, objetivos, justificativa e relevância,
procedimentos metodológicos e delimitações do estudo. A seguir, são apresentados o
capítulo 2 com o artigo “Innovative and sustainable business in the fashion industry:
entrepreneurial drivers, opportunities and challenges” e o capítulo 3 com o artigo
“Analysis of Sustainability Practices in Business Models in the Fashion Industry”. Por
fim, o capítulo 4 apresenta as conclusões, implicações dos resultados e sugestões para
trabalhos futuros.
 18

1.7 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS

BOONS, F.; & LÜDEFE-FREUND, F. (2013). Business models for sustainable

innovation: state-of-the-art and steps towards a research agenda. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 45, 9-19.

CACHON, G.; & SWINNEY, R. (2011). The value of fast fashion: Quick response,
enhanced design, and strategic consumer behavior. Management Science, v. 57, n. 4, p.
778-795.

CARRILLO-HERMOSILLA, J.; DEL RÍO, P., & KÖNNÖLÄ, T. (2010). Diversity of

eco-innovations: reflections from selected case studies. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 18, 1073-1083.

DE BRITO, M.; CARBONE, V.; & BLANQUART, C. (2008). Towards a sustainable

fashion retail supply chain in Europe: organization and performance. International
Journal of Production Economics, v. 114, n. 2, p. 534–553.

DICKSON, M.; & ECKMAN, M. (2006). Social Responsibility: The Concept As

Defined by Apparel and Textile Scholars. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal,
24(3), 178-191.

DISSANAYAKE, G.; & SINHA, P. (2012). Sustainable waste management strategies

in the fashion industry sector. International Journal of Environmental
Sustainability, 8 (1), 77-90.

EISENHARDT, K.; GRAEBNER, M. (2007). Theory building from cases:

Opportunities and Challenges. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1), 25-32.

FASHION UNITED. (2015). Global Fashion Industry Statistics. Disponível em:

https://fashionunited.com/global-fashion-industry-statistics Acesso em 12 dez. 2017.

FORBES. (2017). The World’s Biggest Public Companies. Disponível em:

https://www.forbes.com/global2000/list/ Acesso em 12 dez. 2017.

FRANÇA, C. L.; BROMAN, G.; ROBÈRT, K.; BASILE, G.; & TRYGG, L. (2017). An
approach to business model innovation and design for strategic sustainable
development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140(1), 155-166.
 19
GERRING, J. (2004). What is a case study and what is it good for? American Political
Science Review, 98(2), 341-354.

INIGO, E.; ALBAREDA, L.; & RITALA, P. (2017). Business model innovation for
sustainability: exploring evolutionary and radical approaches through dynamic
capabilities. Industry and Innovation, 24(5), 515-542.

LAASCH, O. (2018). Beyond the purely commercial business model: Organizational

value logics and the heterogeneity of sustainability business models. Long Range
Planning, 51(1), 158-183.

OSTERWALDER, A.; & PIGNEUR, Y. (2010). Business Model Generation: A

Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. John Wiley & Sons,
New York.

NAÇÕES UNIDAS, 1987. Report of the World Commission on Environment and

Development: Our Common Future. Disponível em http://www.un-
documents.net/wced-ocf.htm Acesso em fev. 2018.

PAL, R.; & GANDER, J. (2018) Modelling environmental value: An examination of

sustainable business models within the fashion industry. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 184, 251-263.

PEDERSEN, E.; & ANDERSEN, K. (2015). Sustainability innovators and anchor

draggers: a global expert study on sustainable fashion. Journal of Fashion Marketing
and Management, 19(3), 315-327.

REMY, N.; SPEELMAN, E.; & SWARTZ, S. (2016). Style that’s sustainable: A new
fast-fashion formula. Disponível em: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-
functions/sustainability-and-resource-productivity/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-
new-fast-fashion-formula Acesso em 12 dez. 2017

ROOS, S.; ZAMANI, B.; SANDIN, G.; PETERS, G.; & SVANSTROM, M. (2016). A
life cycle assessment (LCA)-based approach to guiding an industry sector towards
sustainability: the case of the Swedish apparel sector. Journal of Cleaner Production,
133, 691-700.
 20
VELU, C.; & STILES, P. (2013) Managing decision-making and cannibalization for
parallel business models. Long Range Planning. 46(6), 443-458.

VOSS, C.; TSIKRIKTSIS, N.; & FROHLICH, M. (2002). Case research in operations
management. International Journal of Operations & Production Mangement, 22(2),
195-219.

WIELAND, A.; & HANDFIELD, R. (2013). The socially responsible supply chain: an
imperative for global corporations. Supply Chain Management Review, v.
September/October 2013, p. 22-29.
 21

2 ARTIGO I - INNOVATIVE AND SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY: ENTREPRENEURIAL
DRIVERS, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

Artigo publicado no periódico Business Horizons

Abstract: Abstract: An issue that is increasingly important to both new and existing
companies is how to thrive in the competitive environment with innovative business
models while avoiding harming the planet and respecting society. Trends such as
circular economy, fair trade, lowsumerism, and sharing economy are some of the many
emerging entrepreneurial approaches that address this issue, but there is still a gap
between what theory argues and the levels of environmental and social sustainability
found in practice. In fact, most research on the topic of sustainable business models is
still exploratory and does not fully acknowledge these emerging approaches, whose
definitions, boundaries and defining characteristics are still somewhat vague. This study
seeks to contribute to the understanding of the inner entrepreneurial dynamics of
innovative sustainable business models. In particular, we focus on the fashion business,
a resource-intensive industry where opportunities to reduce environmental impacts and
to innovate business models abound. The aim of our research is to investigate
innovative business models in the fashion industry that have sustainability as their
defining characteristic, especially in terms of value proposition. In order to do that, we
combine a systematic review of the literature with an empirical research made of: (i) six
interviews with specialists in sustainability, business model innovation and the fashion
industry; and (ii) eight case studies on innovative fashion startups we define “born
sustainable”. As a result, we propose a synthesizing framework disclosing trends and
drivers of innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry; and we
highlight opportunities and challenges for researchers and entrepreneurs interested in
this topic.

Keywords: Sustainability, innovation, business model, business model innovation,

sustainable fashion; born sustainable startups.
 22

2.1 FAST FASHION: ARE THERE ALTERNATIVES?

The fashion industry underwent a remarkable expansion in the last two

decades, especially with the consolidation of the approach known as ‘fast fashion’,
which emphasizes an entrepreneurial modus operandi of rapid acquisition and disposal
of mass-produced, homogeneous and standardized fashion items (Fletcher, 2010).
However, by stimulating widespread consumption of cheap and easily replaceable
garments, fast fashion has a significant downside in terms of environmental and social
sustainability. In fact, the fashion industry is widely considered highly polluting, as it
intensely consumes natural resources in raw material extraction and processing, and
employs hazardous chemicals in various manufacturing processes. Similarly, in the late
phases of the fashion product lifecycle, garment disposal usually consists of simply
discarding it in landfills rather than attempting to reuse or recycle it. Animals
mistreatment is also a concern, as inputs of animal origins are sometimes associated
with exploitation, as the example of luxury coat maker Montcler’s geese scandal
illustrates (e.g. Capelle-Blancard and Petit, 2016), leading to question how even
internationally renowned brands select and manage their suppliers. Moreover, fast
fashion has often been linked to workers’ rights violations, as manufacturing is
commonly outsourced to countries with limited or permissive work regulations (Ansett,
2007). Episodes such as the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 (Burke, 2013) illustrate why it
is important – and urgent – to think about sustainable alternatives to the fast fashion
approach.

Consumers seem to be aware of these issues, as evidenced by a growing

interest in green products (Very, 2016); such increased awareness is even higher among
young consumers, who are the main target of fast fashion companies. Empirical studies
(i.e., Medeiros et al., 2016; Jung & Jin, 2016) show that consumers typically recognize
added value in environmentally-friendly products, and are willing to pay premium
prices under the right conditions. As a response, large-scale retailers such as H&M and
Zara have recently invested in sustainable actions (as discussed in the companies’
sustainability reports, which mention initiatives on conscious product and material
management, animal welfare and inspirational training programs for employees and
customers), and there are reasons to believe this trend will grow. Sustainability
reporting is already a common practice in the fashion industry, although there are still
 23
consistency issues (Kozlowski et al., 2015). Not only incumbent companies are making
their moves in this renewed entrepreneurial arena. Recently, many fashion new ventures
or startups also emerged which make sustainability the core of their value proposition
and business model.

At the same time, larger cultural and socio-economic macro-trends such as

circular economy (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017) and sharing economy (Martin, 2016) are
challenging traditional mass production paradigms, driving the need for new and
innovative business models that consider sustainability not as an afterthought, but as a
crucial design element. Along these macro-trends, technological innovation in garment
materials and manufacturing processes enable a new way to think about business
models that goes beyond scale economies and scope advantages generated by fast
fashion. It is a time of opportunities for entrepreneurs to build innovative business
models that explore these opportunities while pursuing not only economic, but also
social and environmental value creation.

While there are numerous examples of innovative sustainable business models

in the fashion industry (e.g., Roos et al., 2016; Pedersen & Andersen, 2015;
Dissanayake & Sinha, 2012), there is still much uncertainty about how such business
models should be structured. This uncertainty applies both to creating new enterprises
and reinventing existing ones, as research about the inner dynamics of successful
innovative and sustainable business models is still scarce and largely focused on
individual cases. No systematic approach to synthetize the drivers of successful
innovative and sustainable business models in the fashion industry has been put
forward. That is precisely what we set out to do in this research.

This paper has three main objectives. First, we identify the large-scale socio-
economic and cultural trends that are pressuring the current dominant fast fashion
approach. Second, we explore innovative business models in the fashion industry that
have sustainability as their defining characteristic, especially in terms of value
proposition. By doing so, a number of generic “building blocks” were identified that
describe key working elements (drivers) of such business models. We investigate the
interplay between these drivers in eight case studies with innovative and sustainable
fashion firms. The final objective is to generalize the findings in a set of challenges and
 24
opportunities to innovative and sustainable business models that could orient academics
and entrepreneurs interested in sustainable fashion.

2.2 HOW THE RESEARCH WAS PERFORMED

Although there are studies investigating sustainability-related business model

innovation in the fashion industry (e.g., Pedersen & Netter, 2015; Lueg et al., 2015,
Kozlowski et al., 2015; Beh et al., 2016), research approaching the topic from an
integrative, holistic perspective is still lacking. This paper is positioned in a largely
fragmented field where much of the knowledge generated is empirical, derived from
lessons learned by entrepreneurs trying to develop and improve sustainable business
models. As such, we performed an exploratory research combining: a comprehensive
systematic review of the academic literature; interviews with specialists in
sustainability, business model innovation and the fashion industry; and a wide search on
the specialized press that covers the fashion industry. As a result, a synthesizing
framework was generated comprising main trends and drivers of innovative and
sustainable business models in the fashion industry. Next, we conducted eight case
studies involving innovative fashion firms to illustrate the entrepreneurship implications
of the identified trends and drivers. Finally, we used the case studies to frame a
discussion of opportunities and challenges for researchers and practitioners interested in
this topic.

The first step of the research was a systematic review of literature, defined by
Hallinger (2013) as a planned, structured and explicit process of identification,
selection, assessment and synthesis of previous published academic research. This
technique was used to collect and analyze published examples of innovative and
sustainable business models in the fashion industry and to gain insight about how the
academia sees the main trends that are driving the fashion industry towards triple
bottom line sustainability. Data collection was conducted in five steps, based on
Tranfield et al. (2003) and Hallinger (2013): (i) main topic and research objectives
definition; (ii) data source definition; (iii) data extraction; (iv) data evaluation; and (v)
data analysis and synthesis. For the first step, the following research problem was
defined: “which are the sustainability-related business model innovations being
conducted in the fashion industry?” Sources of data were papers published in academic
 25
journals and conference proceedings that included the following words set in their titles,
abstracts, or keywords: “sustainability” (and variants, such as “sustainable”) AND
(“business model” OR “innovation”) AND (“fashion” OR “garment” OR “apparel”).
Three different academic databases were searched (Web of Science, Scopus, and
Science Direct), resulting in 177 papers. Evidently, not every paper addressed the issue
of interest. Thus, each paper was independently evaluated by the four authors using a
four-point scale (1 for “certainly not relevant”, 2 for “I think it is not relevant”, 3 for “I
think it is relevant” and 4 for “certainly relevant”). Scores were compared, and a
complete reading of the 53 papers that obtained an average acceptance score equal or
higher than 3.0 (i.e. the mean of means of all evaluations) was conducted independently
by the four authors, who identified concepts that drive sustainability in fashion as well
as examples of innovative business models that make use of these concepts and direct or
indirect mentions to potential challenges and opportunities for sustainable fashion
entrepreneurship. Finally, the authors collectively built a synthetizing framework
relating the drivers of sustainable business model innovation to specific dimensions of
the identified business models, as well as the macro-trends, and consolidated a list of
challenges and opportunities.

Next, the systematic literature review was complemented with empirical

research. In this step, we aimed at adding knowledge that had not been incorporated in
the traditional academic discourse and identifying additional examples of innovative
and sustainable fashion business models in order to test and refine the framework
developed from the literature review. Data was collected from primary and secondary
sources. The former consisted of interviews with six specialists in fashion business,
while the latter included news outlets covering the fashion industry such as FFW and
Fashion Revolution. We also conducted eight case studies with Brazilian and Italian
fashion firms that innovated their business models using the drivers of sustainable
business model innovation identified in our framework. In selecting cases, we
prioritized interesting entrepreneurial stories whose inner workings are based on
multiple drivers. We chose cases that illustrate challenges and opportunities for
sustainable fashion entrepreneurship in different contexts. Finally, in order to provide a
comprehensive overview of the role of technology in exploring fashion innovation
drivers, we included cases whose innovative aspects are both high- and low-tech
oriented.
 26

2.3 MACRO-TRENDS SHAPING THE COMPETITIVE ARENA FOR FASHION

BUSINESSES

The research identified five socio-economic and cultural macro-trends behind

the push for sustainable and innovative business model alternatives to the fast fashion
paradigm.

2.3.1 Consumer awareness

Consumers constantly change their habits and preferences. Among such recent
changes, the trend of increased awareness about sustainability is one of the most
important elements behind the surge in alternatives to fast fashion. Evidences of such
behavioral change are the increase in interest in green products (Very, 2016), the
proliferation of bottom up initiatives such as the maker and do-it-yourself movements
(Lindtner, 2016), the consolidation of exchange and sharing platforms (Startup Europe,
2016), and the growing notion that today’s youth tend to prioritize experiences over
ownership of goods (Goldman Sachs, 2015). Conscious consumers are increasingly
adopting sustainability-related habits. A definite cultural (and, perhaps, generational)
shift is in motion, as the consumerism that characterized the last few decades is being
replaced by principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling (the famous 3Rs of
sustainability) in individual and collective routines.

Impacts of this growing awareness about sustainability in the fashion industry

have already been noticed as decreasing sales for fast fashion companies (Very, 2016),
which in turn responded with initiatives like H&M’s 2015 partnership with the Ellen
MacArthur Foundation to foster development of circular economy projects and C&A’s
2014 program to promote circular economy and zero waste practices. Movements such
as lowsumerism (Biz, 2015) and slow fashion (Fletcher, 2010) are direct expressions of
changing consumers’ perceptions and preferences about fashion consumption which
directly impact how firms in this industry design and innovate their business models.
 27
2.3.2 Circular Economy

The main idea behind the socio-economic trend of circular economy is to build
a model of economic production based on purposeful restoration and regeneration. A
circular economy is restorative by design, and aims to keep products, components and
materials at their highest utility and value at all times. This economic model strives to
decouple economic growth and development from the consumption of finite resources;
to do so, it distinguishes between technical and biological materials, and focuses on
effective design and use of materials to optimize their flow and maintain or increase
technical and natural resource stock. Circular economy provides opportunities for
innovation in product design, service and business models, food, farming, biological
feedstock and products; as a result, it establishes a framework and building blocks for a
long-term resilient system (Webster, 2015).

Circular Economy challenges fast fashion by drawing a sharp distinction

between consumption and use of materials, advocating the need for a functional service
model characterized by manufacturers or retailers increasingly retaining product
ownership and acting as service providers. This paradigm shift has direct implications
for the development of efficient and effective take-back systems and the emergence of
new design practices that generate more durable products, facilitate disassembly and
refurbishment and, as appropriate, support innovative business models (Webster, 2015).

2.3.3 Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) aggregates many types of practices, at

different levels of proactivity, complexity and time horizons (Dickson, 2005). There is a
clear trend towards increased adoption of CSR practices in the fashion industry,
including discussions about the ethics of communicating sustainable actions for
business purposes and the risk of incurring in greenwashing (Baldassarre & Campo,
2016). A decade ago, Dickson and Eckman (2006) already found growing perceived
importance of social responsibility in the fashion industry, with 97% of the respondents
agreeing that topics of social responsibility should be considered somewhat or very
important by apparel and textile professionals. Socially-oriented indicators featured
prominently in the sustainability reports of all 14 fashion brands studied by Kozlowski
 28
et al. (2015). In a few cases, such as that of the apparel retailer Gap (Ansett, 2007),
fashion companies even integrate CSR in their business models.

In the fashion industry, CSR seems to manifest more often in supply chain
management, as leading fashion brands have to deal with increasingly complex
networks of suppliers, geographically distributed all around the globe. In the fast
fashion approach, brands usually outsource production to countries with low-cost labor.
The fact that fashion manufacturing is so often dissociated from design, marketing and
consumption and relegated to far away countries where regulation on working
conditions is far from stringent has fueled sweatshop free and fair trade movements,
which aim to provide fair wages and working conditions in the upstream supply chain.
As a result, global fashion brands tend to adopt CSR measures such as sustainability
reporting, voluntary participation in multi-stakeholder monitoring (Wilburn & Wilburn,
2016) and auditing initiatives such as the Fair Trade Association, development of codes
of conduct and labor standards assurance programs, and adoption of supplier disclosure
and transparency practices all along the supply chain.

2.3.4 Sharing Economy and Collaborative Consumption

One of the defining macro-trends behind sustainable and innovative business

models in the fashion industry involves the emergence and consolidation of the sharing
economy. Among the multiple framings for this phenomenon, we focus on those that
consider it a pathway to sustainable consumption and a decentralized, equitable and
sustainable economy (Martin, 2016). In this perspective, the sharing economy refers to a
global cultural and economic paradigm shift from ownership to access manifested in
approaches such as collaborative and access-based consumption, which have the
potential to both promote economic growth based on innovation and entrepreneurship
and mitigate environmental impacts associated with large-scale production processes.

In this sense, collaborative consumption is not simply a cultural reaction

against consumption, but a conscious and efficient alternative for adapting collective
and individual needs to available resources. According to Botsman and Rogers (2010),
collaborative consumption refers to the expansion and reinvention of exchanging,
swapping, bartering, sharing, loaning and donating practices, usually between people
not previously connected. The logic of collaborative consumption is simple: instead of
 29
buying products, it is possible to access goods without performing monetary exchanges.
Lane (2012) argues that this allows addressing basic human needs in a way that is both
sustainable and economically viable.

Among models of collaborative consumption that fit the definition by Botsman

and Rogers (2010) there is the Redistribution Market. In this model, web-based
platforms match and connect individuals who have obsolete or idle goods with
individuals interested in these same goods, acting as marketplaces where exchanges are
conducted (Kathan et al., 2016). The collaborative consumption model is commonly
employed for fashion items and allows a more efficient use of products and the
extension of their lifespans, beyond enabling social interaction. Web-based
collaborative consumption models allow traditional bartering and haggling activities,
which have always been present in local communities in the form of flea markets, thrift
stores and garage sales, in a much wider scale.

2.3.5 Technological Innovation

Lastly, there is a techno-economic macro-trend encompassing various

technological developments enabling changes towards improved sustainability in
fashion. Among the technological innovations which currently impact business models
in fashion, sustainable or alternative fibers seem to be the most prominent innovations
according to our literature review. Impacts include improvements in clothing durability,
reduced waste from cleaning processes and use of alternative (synthetic) raw materials
instead of scarce natural resources. An already mature technology making important
inroads in the fashion industry is the additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing
(Lipson & Kurman, 2013). This technology is already in use in many industries, helping
to reduce production waste by completely altering the logic of production: instead of
removing materials (thus generating waste), additive manufacturing builds up the final
products adding layers to layers. Finally, short-to-medium term technological trends
that have potential to impact fashion business models is that of wearable technology
(Seymour, 2008) and augmented reality. Although still in the pre-dominant design
phase, smart wearables can revolutionize fashion by opening up many alternatives in
terms of monitoring wear and tear of fabrics, so to best detect when and how to discard
a piece of garment. Similarly, increased use of electronics in fashion items can stimulate
 30
improvement in the after-consumption process, as adequate disposal infrastructure has
to be put in place and efforts to create widespread customer awareness about the need to
correctly discard smart clothing must be made. Augmented reality and the related 3D
technologies allow to create virtual retail stores filled with objects such as smart mirrors
and dressing rooms: this technological innovation can be assumed to hold a positive
impact on the sustainability of the supply chain (since in a “3D virtual boutique” you
need no or little in-store stock, enabling operation through a make-to-order rather than a
make-to-stock logic).

2.4 DRIVERS OF SUSTAINABILITY-RELATED INNOVATION IN FASHION

BUSINESS MODELS

Our systematic literature research uncovered eight drivers of sustainability-

related business model innovation for fashion businesses: (i) upcycling, (ii) fair trade,
(iii) second hand, (iv) sustainable raw materials, (v) slow fashion, (vi) recycling, (vii)
sweatshop free, and (viii) zero waste. Additionally, the empirical research revealed
seven more drivers: (ix) locally sourced, (x) fashion library, (xi) collaboration, (xii)
vegan, (xiii) capsule wardrobe, (xiv) wearable technology, and (xv) lowsumerism. The
fact that some of the drivers did not appear in the literature review reinforces the notion
that the shift towards sustainable fashion business models is still emergent, and not fully
captured by academic literature.

These drivers were analyzed according to how they usually impact each of the
nine main components of a business model, as defined by the popular Business Model
Canvas framework by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010): value proposition, customer
segment, delivery channels, customer relationship, key activities, key resources, value
network, cost structure, and revenue flows. Table 1 summarizes the results, in which we
allocate the drivers in groups belonging to the trends that we presented in the section
2.3. This classification does not mean that each driver has only features related to the
trend in which it is allocated, but is mainly related to that trend. Next, each driver is
briefly described, along the most common innovation impacts in business model
parameters.
 31
Upcycling refers to the use of wasting materials to generate new goods of
equal or higher perceived value, utility, and/or quality than the original products
(Dissanayake & Sinha, 2015). It generates sustainability by reusing resources which
would be discarded as raw materials for new products, thus extending their lifespan and
decreasing the need for natural resources. In the fashion industry, upcycling has a direct
impact on the key resources and activities parameters of the Business Model Canvas, as
access to good materials for upcycling can be a source of advantage. Evidently,
upcycling is also relevant for the value proposition parameter, as it can provide added
value generated from increased perceived quality, sustainability, functionality,
exclusivity, authenticity, and equity (Jung & Jin, 2014), as well as alignment with
circular economy values.

Fair trade aims at offering a worthy wage for all workers involved, as well as
healthy workplace environments and social investment for the communities (Kocken,
2013). It addresses the rising awareness about social sustainability among fashion
consumers, and thus requires the adoption of innovative practices of customer
relationship. It also impacts the key partners parameter of a business model, as it
requires fashion brands to rethink and, in many cases, adopt innovative supply chain
management procedures for partner selection, monitoring, and rewarding. An
illustrative example of innovative business model based upon fair trade is People Tree,
which sells garments manufactured by selected companies in emerging countries
according to the fair trade approach, ethics, and transparency (Goworek, 2011). Another
case of innovation in fashion business model driven by fair trade was reported by
Curwen et al. (2013), and refers to a project of the Eileen Fisher brand employing a
Peruvian community for manufacturing.

Collaboration as a driver of innovative and sustainable business models in

fashion refers to the adoption of a collaborative mindset by all stakeholders involved in
a sustainable value network: suppliers, distributors, customers (who often are involved
in co-creating initiatives) and even competitors. In fact, it does not seem uncommon to
witness co-opetition efforts among sustainable fashion startups. Collaboration allows
the creation of a supporting ecosystem that drives resource and knowledge sharing,
promotes the diffusion of sustainable practices and ultimately allows business model
experimentation. As a result, it is a critical driver for startups and small businesses, and
 32
impacts the business model parameters related to value creation (key activities, key
resources and key partners) and distribution (delivery channels and customer
relationship), with potential impacts also on cost structure and revenue flows, as many
collaboration initiatives involve revenue sharing.

The second hand driver refers to consumers selling or donating apparel no

longer in use to other consumers. It promotes reuse of fashion products, thus reducing
demand for new manufactured items and the associated environmental pressures in
terms of natural resources consumption. This driver is usually associated with items
used only a limited number of times, such as baby clothing or party dresses. Impacts on
business model innovation are many, usually implying extensive change in value
proposition, delivery channels, customer relationship, key activities, and revenue
streams.

Sustainable raw materials contemplate the development and adoption of

different types of environmentally-friendly raw materials, such as organic cotton, hemp,
bamboo, lyocell and recycled fibers. As driver of innovation and sustainability in
business models, it mainly impacts the key activities, key resources and customer
relationship parameters by requiring, respectively, technological development, reliable
access to a source of materials and communication of brand commitment to sustainable
practices. Impacts on cost structure are not uncommon, as these technologies often have
to be internally developed or externally acquired. An innovative business model built
upon this driver is Orange Fiber, an Italian startup that creates sustainable fibers using
waste from orange juice production.

The slow fashion driver refers to an approach to fashion production and

commercialization practices that opposes the paradigm of fast fashion. In its essence,
slow fashion represents a social movement akin to the slow food movement that
emerged in Italy in response to the expansion of fast food chains in a country where
social and cultural traditions favor regionalized cuisine and a very intimate relationship
with food and meals (Fletcher, 2010). As such, slow fashion usually implies the
provision of higher quality, often locally made apparel, and requires increased
awareness about social and environmental benefits associated with this approach by
both producers and consumers (Fletcher, 2007). Slow fashion drives innovation in value
proposition and customer relationship parameters, as firms orient their offering towards
 33
increased perceived quality and authenticity and address customer concerns in terms of
environmental (by reusing or recycling materials) and social (by prioritizing locally-
made products and firms that adopt fair trade principles) impacts.

The recycling driver is based on converting materials from existing products to

create different products. As it often involves high-energy processes, it is considered the
last choice among the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), though it is an important alternative
to implement circular economy principles as it reduces the need for new materials and
natural resources consumption. Basically, adopting recycling in a business model
implies transformations in the cost structure, key activities and key partners parameters,
as firms in the fashion industry tend to acquire recycled materials instead of processing
it themselves. A high profile example of innovative business model based on recycling
is that of Adidas and Parley for the Oceans (McAlone, 2016), who developed a sneaker
using plastic waste recovered from oceans.

The concept of sweatshop free involves transparency about working

conditions in the manufacturing firm, and opposes the practice of outsourcing
production to emerging countries that has been widely employed by fast fashion
companies in search of low wage labor. This definition comes from American Apparel
(2016), a retailer which promotes vertical integration to generate consumer engagement
by increasing consumer awareness about fair treatment. This trend deals with the social
aspect of sustainability, and impacts customer relationship, key resources and key
activities business model parameters.

The fashion library driver, also referred to as clothing library, is essentially a

subscription service for apparel. In this mechanism, the customer does not own the
fashion items, but can access and use them for a limited time (Pedersen & Netter, 2015).
A successful business model based on this driver is the Dutch company LENA, which
prices its subscription plans according to the volume of clothing a consumer can borrow
in a month. By using sharing mechanisms, items which would be used only a few times
if owned individually reach a wider audience, thus potentially diminishing the need for
new apparel. This driver impacts the business model in terms of customer relationship,
as it requires a new way to engage customers and cross-upsell to them, and value
proposition, which is completely revamped, in essence going from a product-centered to
 34
a service logic of consumption. Revenue model also changes from selling to usage-
based or subscription fees.

The locally sourced driver consists of prioritizing product manufacturing in

regions geographically close to its consumption. How to measure ‘closeness’ is still
debatable and depends on the specific context, but this choice tends to generate
sustainability by reducing costs and environmental impact associated with
transportation and stimulating local businesses, thus improving employment in local
communities. Business model innovation derived from this driver involves how
information is communicated to customers, and how customers react. As such, it
impacts the customer relationship and value proposition business model parameters.
More importantly, it strongly influences key partners selection.

Zero waste is a driver based on the notion of minimizing material waste in

apparel production, which accounts for about 15% of the raw materials in traditional
design and production methods (Rissanen, 2013). It generates innovation for
sustainability by reducing the use of raw materials through the development and
adoption of novel and more efficient production processes, such as additive
manufacturing. Adopting zero waste requires innovation in key resources, key activities
and cost structure parameters. Clothing brand Zero Waste Daniel employs a reroll
method to achieve a near zero waste production process.

Vegan refers to an approach to fashion production that deliberately refrains

from using raw materials of animal origin. By doing so, it aims to reduce overall energy
consumption within the whole system, as animal material extraction and processing
tend to require higher energy inputs. The adoption of vegan manufacturing principles
potentially impacts four business model parameters: key resources, as it requires access
to specialized resources or suppliers; key partner selection; channels and
communication content; and value proposition, as it allows the firm to devise its
offering in a way that appeals to consumers concerned with animal rights and/or
dedicated to the vegan movement.

The capsule wardrobe and lowsumerism drivers depend fundamentally on

the consumer’s behavior and attitude. They involve, respectively, a commitment to
owning and using only a limited amount of clothes for a fixed period of time (e.g., a
 35
season or a year) and the adoption of a generally critical approach to consumption that
prioritizes conscious and moderate acquisitions of new goods (Biz, 2015). These drivers
generate sustainability by opposing compulsive consumption and fostering a minimalist
conscience among consumers. These drivers require extensive business model
innovation in terms of customer relationship and value proposition, with potential
implications also for revenue models.

Wearable technology involves incorporating electronic devices in fashion

goods to provide added functionalities, such as health monitoring, or to allow the
apparel to change form or appearance (Ringly is an example of wearable technology). It
impacts the value proposition parameter, generating opportunities to create additional
value through novelty, improved or expanded functionalities, and exclusivity. It also
affects key technology-related activities, resources, partners and costs.
 36
Table 1 - Trends and drivers of sustainability-related business model innovation for fashion
businesses

Driver of sustainable Where does it drive innovation in the Examples of innovative and sustainable
Macro-trend
innovation business model? business models in fashion

Cost Structure, Key Activities, Key Incumbent: Adidas

Recycling
Partners Startup: Orange Fiber
Key Partners, Key Resources,
Circular Economy Vegan Startup: Preza
Channels, Value Proposition
Key Resources, Key Activities,
Upcycling Startups: Colibrii, Revoada, Preza
Value Proposition
Customer Relationship, Key
Sweatshop Free Incumbent: American Apparel
Resources, Key Activities
Social Incumbents: People Tree, Eileen Fisher
Fair Trade Customer Relationship, Key Partners
Responsibility Startups: Colibrii, Revoada
Customer Relationship, Value Startups: Contextura, Lanieri, Orange Fiber,
Locally Sourced
Proposition, Key Partners Revoada, Colibrii
Customer Relationship, Value
Fashion Library Startup: LENA
Proposition, Revenue Streams
Value Proposition, Channels,
Sharing Economy Second Hand Customer Relationship, Key Startup: Armadio Verde
Activities, Revenue Streams
Key Partners, Key Activities, Key
Collaboration Resources, Delivery Channels, Startups: Armadio Verde, Preza, Revoada
Customer Relationship.
Sustainable Raw Key Resources, Customer
Startups: Orange Fiber, Contextura
Materials Relationship, Cost Structure

Product Key Resources, Key Activities, Startups: ELSE Corp, Orange Fiber, Zero
Zero Waste
Technology Cost Structure Waste Daniel, Contextura
Key Resources, Key Activities, Key
Wearables Partners, Value Proposition, Cost Startup: Ringly
Structure
Customer Relationship, Value
Capsule Wardrobe
Proposition, Revenue Streams Drivers generated mainly by consumer
behavior
Consumer Customer Relationship, Value
Lowsumerism
Awareness Proposition, Revenue Streams
Startups: Armadio Verde, Contextura, Preza,
Value Proposition, Customer Lanieri
Slow Fashion
Relationship

Source: the authors.

 37

2.5 FASHION STARTUPS FOCUSED ON SUSTAINABILITY

In order to illustrate the interplay between these drivers and their impact for
sustainable fashion entrepreneurship, we conducted eight case studies with Brazilian and
Italian firms. The role of technology in promoting and exploring these drivers was controlled
by selecting an equal number of cases where high technology is essential or almost absent.
We focused exclusively on cases of new businesses, since while the literature already covers
examples of business model innovation driven by sustainability concerns within incumbent
companies (e.g. Kozlowski et al., 2015), little is discussed about the startups that we label
“born sustainable”, that is, which are originally conceived to develop a new business model
leveraging sustainability at its core. Analyzing such emerging cases could disclose the
entrepreneurial dynamics and trends of the sustainable fashion of the future.

2.5.1 Preza

The first case is that of Preza, a Brazilian startup whose original value proposition
lies in transforming industrial waste in high-end fashion accessories. Preza’s main product is a
line of designer sunglasses made of wood waste from the local luxury furniture industry. Its
value creation practices are illustrative of the vegan and upcycling drivers, as all raw materials
and production inputs (e.g., solvent-free resins extracted from Brazilian plants) are fully
environmentally-friendly. Slow fashion is also a key component of its value proposition: by
relying on laborious and time-consuming craft production processes using singular raw
materials without any additional painting or finishing, each product is unique and receives an
identification number. Preza structured a value network of key partners aligned with the same
sustainability principles that guide the firm. In fact, collaboration is essential for establishing
distribution channels. While the firm manages its own electronic commerce channel, key
partnerships with luxury stores provide a distribution network for direct sales. Recently, the
firm has explored new venues for revenue creation by promoting a second value proposition
targeting corporate clients: instead of wood sunglasses, Preza combined its core competences
in design and technical expertise on treating wood waste to create corporate-branded gifts for
large companies wishing to promote or associate themselves with sustainable values.
 38

2.5.2 Revoada

Another Brazilian case is that of Revoada, a fashion startup that illustrates the
combined use of upcycling, locally sourced, collaboration and fair trade drivers. Its innovative
value proposition involves manufacturing backpacks, wallets and briefcases using inner tubes
of large vehicle tires and discarded umbrellas as substitutes to leather and nylon. Revoada had
to create a supplier network from scratch, as these items were not usually sorted out in
Brazilian recycling centers. Fair trade is promoted by paying for this material the prices
equivalent to the most expensive materials sold by the recycling centers. As suppliers do not
have sustainability as a core value, adopting fair trade is a way to assure supplier
commitment. The business model was innovated three times in the four years of Revoada’s
existence. Initially, individual consumers were targeted directly (e-commerce) and indirectly
(collaboration with alternative fashion stores). The high upfront costs of building inventory
and low engagement of partner stores in promoting the sustainable value of the products led to
a first change in the business model, which pivoted towards business-to-business. This second
value proposition was based on manufacturing green products to corporate customers wishing
to associate their brands to sustainability. The success of this model stretched Revoada’s
production capacity, but promoted much needed growth. Nowadays, the firm is experimenting
again. It successfully tested a crowdfunding model for direct e-commerce sales, restricting
production to a minimum order size, and a consulting model for business clients. Basically,
the new corporate value proposition involves providing services based on the firm’s expertise
with design and green product development for firms who want to create their own innovative
sustainable initiatives. The business model of Colibrii, the third Brazilian case, is similar to
that of Revoada: the startup also explores upcycling by handcrafting backpacks and purses
using waste from the textile industry as raw materials. Production is outsourced to local
artisans, which is illustrative of how locally sourced and fair trade drivers are typically
employed in low-tech fashion startups.

2.5.3 Contextura

Contextura is the fourth Brazilian case, and its business model is strongly rooted in
the slow fashion and zero waste drivers. Garments are handcrafted from reused textiles and
alternative sustainable materials (i.e., recycled PET, sustainable fibers, etc.). Drawing from
the locally sourced driver, production is outsourced to local artisans, which limits scalability
 39

and growth. Following lowsumerism principles, products are designed to be timeless and
versatile, so garments can be used in many different ways and situations. A direct sales model
is employed combining an e-commerce platform with a locally owned retail store and partner
luxury retail stores all over Brazil.

2.5.4 Armadio Verde

Four Italian cases were also conducted. All of them report startups that focus on
technology to enable the drivers of sustainable innovation. Armadio Verde is an online
platform for children clothing exchange which draws from the lowsumerism, second hand,
and collaboration drivers. The startup created a point-based exchange mechanism for donating
and acquiring second-hand garments for newborns and children up to sixteen years old. By
donating used clothes, members can obtain credits to spend on other clothes made available
through the platforms, thus triggering engagement and collaboration. Armadio Verde fosters a
new fashion experience, based on values such as sustainability, innovation, sharing, saving
both money, time and resources, and high quality (since all garments are controlled for quality
and brand upon their receipt); by focusing on children, the startup also has strong potential for
promoting customer education.

2.5.5 Orange Fiber

Orange Fiber is a startup aiming at the creation of sustainable textiles from citrus
juice byproducts. In Italy alone, more than one million tons of citrus byproducts are wasted
every year: Orange Fiber hence came up with the original and inherently sustainable idea to
reuse these wastes (like orange, lemon and grapefruit peels) by transforming them into
cellulose fibers, thus developing an innovative fabric to be later used for clothes
manufacturing. To do so, the startup designed, developed and patented a process based on
nanotechnology which replaces highly polluting raw materials with natural elements. The
resulting sustainable textile represents a brand new opportunity for Italian tradition in high
quality textiles and fashion. The Orange Fiber business model leverages and resembles the
sustainability drivers of sustainable raw materials, recycling, local sourcing and zero waste.
 40

2.5.6 Lanieri

Lanieri is the first e-commerce platform to propose entirely Made in Italy, made-to-
measure men’s clothing online, drawing from the slow fashion and locally sourced drivers. In
its platform, the customer may choose among various Italian fabrics, customize the model
(choices for buttons, linings, collars, pockets, waistbands and cuffs allow more than 10
million combinations) and inform their measures thanks to a 3D configurator. The firm also
provides expert tailors in many European cities for face-to-face interaction, an option that
explores locally sourced dynamics.

2.5.7 ELSE Corp

Finally, ELSE Corp combines 3D product configurator and hybrid manufacturing

technologies in a mass customization platform whose recent versions incorporate augmented
reality features. Its main value proposition lies in providing third parties with smart mirror and
dressing room technology which can minimize store inventory, thus enabling virtual or no
stock retail for the apparel & footwear industry while capitalizing on the zero waste driver.

2.6 WHAT ENTREPRENEURIAL CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES LIE AHEAD?

There are a number of entrepreneurial challenges and opportunities identified in our

analysis. Challenges are issues that repeatedly appeared as critical barriers to the success of
the reviewed business models. As such, they represent issues that must be solved in order to
fully enable a paradigmatic shift towards innovation and sustainability in fashion. On the
other hand, opportunities are elements that have already been technically or economically
incorporated in viable – and, in some cases, successful – business models, but require
additional development, exploitation, expansion or diffusion.

2.6.1 Challenges

We identified four challenges in this study: (i) design phase strategy; (ii) consumer
education; (iii) consumer expectations; and (iv) aligning the values along the supply chain.
Below we present in detail all of them.
 41

2.6.1.1 Rethink the design phase

A key challenge is to rethink the design phase of sustainable product development.

Decisions affecting the whole product are made during the design phase, concerning quality,
appearance, materials, manufacturing processes, and associated costs (Bhamra & Lofthouse,
2007). As such, design decisions impact the whole business model, but are of particularly
critical influence on the translation of sustainability principles to the value proposition
(Fletcher & Grose, 2012). In this sense, adoption of environmentally-friendly materials (e.g.,
sustainable fibers or recycled materials) and production processes (e.g., natural dying
techniques, zero waste mechanisms, slow fashion methods) can yield relevant business
benefits. However, the decision to adopt such materials still represents a challenge for fashion
firms, which still do not perceive it as a strategic priority for the industry (Fletcher & Grose,
2012). Moreover, the design phase is fraught with technical challenges. Dissanayake and
Sinha (2015) point out that concept development for goods making use of post-consumer
waste is severely limited by dimensions, types, colors, and shapes of available material stock,
which often has to be manually disassembled in a time consuming process. Additionally,
design decisions must take into account the availability of recycled materials in order to
maximize repeatability. As a result, the design phase of apparel that make use of recycled
materials ends up being completely different from the design phase of traditional fashion
items, usually requiring “high level of design thinking and creativity” (Dissanayake & Sinha,
2015, p.98). The born sustainable startups Preza and Revoada tackle this issue by creating a
strong relationship with suppliers that provide somewhat standardized raw materials; while
Orange Fiber even redesigned the whole textile development process through patented
technologies. The owners of Contextura are design researchers and focus their research efforts
on redesigned sustainable materials and processes, which are then applied in the firm.

2.6.1.2 Consumer education

Another potential cause of failure of many of the reviewed sustainable business

models is related to consumer education. On the one hand, many sustainable and innovative
business models have failed to convince consumers about the benefits of sustainable fashion
products. For instance, empirical research suggests that most of the defining dimensions of
slow fashion are simply not recognized as valuable by their consumers (Jung & Jin, 2016).
Consumer education about such potential benefits can be a first step in the direction of viable
 42

business models based on this approach. On the other hand, consumer education can be a
catalyst of changes in consumer behavior towards more sustainable individual practices
related to fashion. A key component of this challenge is to convince consumers that is
worthwhile to dedicate efforts towards increasing the value of existing garments by expanding
their lifespan and creatively finding new uses for it (Wang & Song, 2010; Roos et al., 2016).
In this sense, traditional approaches to laundry must be rethought, since this is one of the most
energy-intensive processes in a garment lifetime. Thus, consumers could be educated in
cleaning methods which not only demand less energy, but also increase clothes’ durability
such as natural drying and hand washing instead of machine washing (Wang & Song, 2010).
Besides, consumers could be oriented towards more sustainable consumption behaviors in
order to decrease overall consumption levels, making better use of collaborative consumption
business models such as fashion libraries and rewarding upcycling and recycling initiatives
(Pedersen & Netter, 2015; Roos et al., 2016). All of the reviewed cases show how critical this
challenge is, which manifests in low consumer demand for green products. Preza and
Revoada innovated their business models in response to this challenge, adding a new value
proposition aimed at corporate customers; Armadio Verde leveraged an online platform to
foster collaboration and engagement between members, and explicitly targeted children (the
consumers of the future) so as to educate them about aware consumption of resources as well
as sharing opportunities.

2.6.1.3 Consumer expectations

A challenge closely related to consumer education involves addressing consumers’

sustainability expectations. Consumer education is necessary to expand the awareness about
sustainability, which is still rather limited, to large masses of consumers. Paradoxically,
however, excessive expectations within the small niche of consumers already oriented
towards sustainability in fashion may be a problem. For traditional businesses strongly
associated with fast fashion it may be difficult to promote enough change towards
sustainability as to effectively shift perceived brand image. Certifications are a first step in
this direction, but more is needed to significantly change consumers’ perceptions about the
actions and intentions of firms in terms of commitment to triple bottom line sustainability
(Ansett, 2007). Fast fashion businesses tend to adopt a defensive sustainability strategy due to
the risk associated with offer cannibalization and lowered performance, while born
sustainable startups created following values and principles of sustainability tend to adopt a
 43

much more proactive strategy, incorporating innovation and working in supply chain models
built upon collaboration and innovation (van Bommel, 2011; Nidumolu et al., 2014).

2.6.1.4 Aligning values along the supply chain

Next, it is necessary to improve solutions for aligning values along supply networks,
thus creating truly collaborative arrangements and building stakeholder commitment in
sharing knowledge, resources and abilities. The search for sustainability within fashion supply
chains goes through the perspective of recommercialization, for instance by selling products
from past collections or second hand items (Meyer, 1999), similarly to what happens in the
Armadio Verde case. In the first case, participants in the value network are required to set up
a reverse supply chain, that is, to move the product backwards from consumer to
manufacturer, and redirect the product to a new sales channel, usually in the form of outlets.
In the second case, different participants in the value network are involved, because a new
segment consumers is targeted (Brace-Govan & Binay, 2010). In both cases, however, beyond
nurturing technical competences associated with logistics and commercialization, partners in
the value network are required to exchange information and knowledge about consumers,
marketing strategies, and channel operation. Advantages arising from sharing competences
and knowledges in such cases involve significant reduction in associated costs and improved
market performance (Beh et al., 2016), but the operationalization of complex collaborative
efforts involving more than knowledge sharing is a significant challenge for participating
firms, as attested by the example of Revoada’s supply chain orchestration. Not only there are
technical issues to be solved (e.g., integrating logistics and information systems, setting up
norms and rules for exchanging knowledge, establishing collaborative marketing strategies in
different regional contexts, etc.), but misaligned organizational culture and values can derail
efforts to effectively engage in strategic partnerships. The challenge of aligning values along
the value chain extends to clients. In the Preza case study, an interesting potential dilemma
was reported by the partners: would they accept orders from a corporate customer whose
public image was unmistakably linked to industries with high environmental impacts?
 44

2.6.2 Opportunities

We also identified a number of entrepreneurial opportunities which may be acted

upon to expand the reach and success of sustainability-based innovative fashion business
models.

2.6.2.1 Enhance focus on CSR

In this light, a first opportunity is to enhance the focus on Corporate Social

Responsibility. Consumer perception of Corporate Social Responsibility actions is constantly
improving, to the point that CSR is starting to be a factor of influence when it comes down to
purchase decisions. More importantly, aspects of fair equity and social responsibility impact
both the market’s upper end (i.e., luxury fashion, as shown by Pavione et al., 2016) and lower
end (Lueg et al., 2015). The importance of communicating CSR practices stands out as a
significant opportunity for expansion and improvement (Lueg et al, 2015). Contextura
partners with a social organization that develops entrepreneurship opportunities in socially
vulnerable communities, hiring women (mostly mothers without other sources of income) as
artisans to work at home. In this context, it builds upon the sweatshop free, fair trade and
locally sourced drivers. It is also worth noticing the expansion of CSR efforts as an
opportunity to address a challenge we mentioned before: that of consumer education about the
benefits of sustainable fashion. The recent business model innovations by Armadio Verde,
Lanieri, Preza and Revoada illustrate how this opportunity is being explored by born
sustainable fashion startups. On the one hand, green products can be customized and sold to
corporate customers, who often use it as gifts to promote commitment towards sustainability.
On the other hand, fashion startups can use their expertise in sustainable product development
to provide consulting services, knowledge and networking for large firms wishing to further
their CSR commitment by developing their own green products and sustainable initiatives.

2.6.2.2 Service-based business models

The latter is also an example of the second opportunity we identified: the development
of service-based business models that reduce stock requirements (like in the Lanieri and
ELSE Corp cases) or even forego production entirely. Other than consulting, this includes
mechanisms such as fashion libraries of garment subscription schemes. Services were always
present in the fashion industry, but the scale of fast fashion firms seems to have diminished
 45

interest in service-based business models. Armstrong et al. (2016) mention that service-based
models such as fashion libraries require resource-intensive activities such as packaging, theft
prevention and product sanitation, while Pedersen and Andersen (2015) suggest alternatives
such as swapping, leasing, repairing, hiring and reusing services. Armstrong et al. (2015)
mention the use of product-service-systems (PSS) to close material loops, in accordance with
the principles of circular economy. The idea is to migrate from the acquisition of new fashion
goods towards the reinvention and restyling of existing goods. After-sale services are
suggested by Wang and Song (2010) in order to help customers to maintain (hand washing
instead of machine washing, drying naturally) and recycle garments.

2.6.2.3 Monetizing voluntary simplicity

A final opportunity involves monetizing the voluntary simplicity embedded in drivers

of sustainable innovation such as upcycling and second hand which are central to many of the
successful business models reviewed in this article. In the fast fashion model, consumers are
usually distant from production processes. This distance implies less emotional appeal in the
acquisition and use of fashion goods, which is necessary for large-scale immoderate
consumption. Voluntary simplicity (Alexander & Ussher, 2012) focuses on the careful use of
apparel and a broader usefulness in order to diminish the production, acquisition and disposal,
thus decreasing the amount of fashion goods and the associated consumption of natural
resources (Ruppert-Stroescu, 2015). In the reviewed business models, voluntary simplicity is
operationalized by upcycling and second hand, which have already been proved viable in
small-scale initiatives, but are yet to be incorporated in scalable business models. The case of
Contextura is a typical example of fashion startup that explores this opportunity with little
technology investments, as their products are purposely designed as classic, timeless, and
versatile; while Armadio Verde shows how technology can be leveraged to set up an two-
sided platform simplifying and fostering the exchange of second-hand clothes.

2.7 IMPLICATIONS FOR FASHION ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Although our study is mostly exploratory, it puts forward a number of implications

for fashion entrepreneurs. A first general implication is that sustainability-oriented business
model innovation in fashion tends to be markedly different for incumbents and startups. A
 46

similar result had been previously reported by Cortimiglia et al. (2016), but for a general
context; evidence that this dynamic is replicated in a very specific setting is an important
contribution to the literature on business model innovation. Indeed, fashion startups are
typically “born sustainable”, as commitment to promoting social and environmental
sustainability tend to be key values and motivations of founders and partners; as a result, these
entrepreneurs leveraged the startups’ flexible state to design innovative business models that
deliberately embed many of the trends and drivers we pinpoint in this study. Incumbents,
however, are clearly characterized by resource rigidity and a strong legacy with the
established fast fashion entrepreneurial paradigm; therefore, they tend to proceed with more
caution, experimenting with small-scale green initiatives and addressing structural issues such
as promoting transparency in supplier selection and management.

A second general implication refers to the role of technology in enabling

sustainability-oriented business model innovation for fashion startups. Our selection of cases
suggests that high technology is helpful when it comes to radically rethinking manufacturing
processes (as Orange Fiber did); still it is not a hard requirement for successful innovative
fashion business models. In fact, small-scale initiatives using limited technology can be an
important launch pad for business model experimentation. When a viable model is found,
however, technology can be useful to scale up the business. Preza is illustrative of this
dynamic. After a slow start building technical competences and proving the viability of the
product, investments in production technology allowed them to increase production capacity
to match the controlled growth of the distribution network of partners and, consequently,
demand.

A third implication stemming out from our cases is that sustainability drivers are
seldom exploited alone and as such by born sustainable startups: consistently with
entrepreneurship literature (e.g., see Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Alvarez and Barney,
2001), in order to pursue market opportunities, startups create their unique value proposition
by originally recombining different approaches, resources and competencies with synergic
effects (see Orange Fiber’s combined use of sustainable raw materials, recycling, local
sourcing and zero waste; or Colibrii’s leverage on locally sourced components, upcycling and
fair trade). The resulting new business model proves capable of both generating and capturing
value.
 47

Specific findings from the case studies are insightful. First, several cases highlighted
the importance of partner commitment and engagement. This leads to at least two open issues
with strategic relevance: how to align values and interests along a typically complex value
network and, more specifically, how to promote the sustainability aspects of the value
proposition (and, indirectly, promote consumer education) when partnering with indirect sales
channels. The cases also suggest typical challenges for scaling up successful fashion startups.
Among these challenges, a common theme is that of “keeping true” to the core values of
sustainability, which are normally strongly tied to essential drivers of sustainable business
model innovation such as fair trade, commitment to recycling, upcycling, and use of
sustainable raw materials. A third specific insight refers to the critical importance of a
supporting business ecosystem comprising likely-minded firms who share sustainability
values. Shared values promote knowledge and resource sharing and facilitate the
establishment of collaborative efforts that foster business model experimentation, especially at
the startup stage. This finding leads to another major challenge in the development of a
sustainable fashion industry: closing the gap between incumbent fashion companies willing to
innovate their business model towards sustainability and born sustainable startups striving to
make their business model replicable and scalable. As incumbents are relatively more
effective in establishing competitive advantages but are less able to identify new opportunities
and change accordingly, while startups are inherently more innovative but less successful in
developing competitive advantages needed to appropriate value from those innovations
(Ireland et al., 2003), a strategic collaboration between these players within an open
innovation framework would be beneficial to the industry as a whole.

To summarize, this study addressed the pressing issue of sustainability in the fashion
industry. By combining literature review and empirical research, it discussed the major
entrepreneurial drivers, challenges and opportunity to pursue sustainable business model
innovation. It also depicted how such phenomena impact fashion companies’ business
models. The study’s limitations refer to possible sample selection bias in the cases analyzed,
and observer bias characterizing qualitative research based on interviews. Based on our
findings, future research should disentangle how to tackle the challenges and to fully take
advantage of the opportunity for a sustainable evolution of fashion business models and
industry as a whole, driven by both enlightened incumbents and born sustainable startups.
 48

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3 ARTIGO II - ANALYSIS OF SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES IN

BUSINESS MODELS IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY

Abstract: The fashion industry, as well as other industries, has been under pressure from a
growing portion of the consumer market to operate its businesses in a more sustainable way,
with less social and environmental impacts. Such demand has led several companies to
rethink their business models and has motivated the creation of new ones. Despite this,
initiatives are still dispersed and there is a difficulty in measuring the impacts of these
changes. Due to this situation, this article has the objective of quantitatively analyzing the
sustainability actions of companies in this economic sector. In order achieve that, case studies
were done in 21 companies and a scale of sustainability innovation was created, allowing a
correlation analysis and cross-case comparisons. As a result, it was identified that actions
related to social responsibility and circular economy are the most applied in the analyzed
cases and that the use of natural raw materials is negatively correlated with the scalability of
the business. Finally, an illustrative pathway of sustainable actions was proposed for the
sector's businesses.

Keywords: sustainability scale, business model, sustainable innovation, fashion.

3.1 FASHION BUSINESSES AND ITS IMPACTS

Fashion is one of the greatest current economic forces, valued at 3 trillion dollars and
employing 57.8 million people around the world (Fashion United, 2014). This large industry
has impacts that go beyond the economic sector, reaching also the environment. According to
De Brito et al. (2008), the fashion industry is one of the most harmful to the environment
mainly due to manufacturing phases of dyeing and drying, which use natural resources and
chemicals intensely.

In the last 20 years, a single business model came to dominate the fashion industry.
Defined by Cachon and Swinney (2011) as a system which combines short production and
distribution lead times and highly fashionable product design, fast fashion became the path for
big companies in this sector. This model is characterized by a high competition between
 55

supply chains, marketing activities done by global brands and suppliers offering high
flexibility and cheap labor (Wieland and Handfield, 2013).

In this sense, sweatshop is a challenge that seems unsurmountable in this industry.

The first big scandal happened in 1996 when a Nike factory in Pakistan was discovered using
child labor (Locke, 2002). Other events like the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013 have
intensified the discussion about social responsibility in fashion supply chain (Wieland and
Handfield, 2013). On the other hand, Caniato et al. (2012) suggests that firms can use the
sustainable approach to survive against competition for price dictated by countries with low
labor costs.

Trying to deal with social and environmental damages created in the fast fashion,
consumer-oriented movements like slow fashion and circular economy have arisen in recent
years. The new business models these movements are demanding and creating in terms of
sustainability seem to be promising, but they are still not the rule nowadays. Due to global
scale and recurrence of environmental and social problems, business in the fashion industry
deserves attention in terms of sustainability.

Business model innovation is a rather recent and challenging theme; as it comprises a

more systemic view, innovative practices associated with business models are less predictable
than in areas such as products and/or processes (Velu, 2015), although appropriability and
imitation may be harder to solve (Teece, 2010). Business model innovation towards
sustainability is an even more complex issue, since the company must incorporate sustainable
values to its routine, sometimes developing new activities and/or taking over its supply chain
management. Challenges related to finding a match between customer and sustainability
values and achieving scale are particularly difficult in the specific case of fashion industry
sustainable business model innovation (Pal and Gander, 2018).

Although the topic is not new, there are few previous works that shed light on tools
which may support the phase of innovating business models towards organizational
sustainability (Joyce & Paquin, 2016). In this regard, the main goal of this study is to analyze
how fashion companies are developing sustainable practices and incorporating these practices
in their business models. Moreover, we aim to investigate how fashion firms are dealing with
the challenges and opportunities for sustainable business model innovation identified by
Todeschini et al. (2017).
 56

The article is structured as follows: after the introduction, section II exposes the
references used in the study and section III presents the research method. The fourth section
analyzes the case studies and section V presents the conclusions of the research.

3.2 BUSINESS MODELS AND SUSTAINABILITY IN FASHION

There’s a dearth of clarity about the meaning of the business model concept in the
literature, leading to dispersion rather than conversion of perspectives, and promoting
confusion in terminology, as business model, business concept and revenue model are often
used interchangeably (Zott et al, 2011; Morris et al, 2005). According to a review conducted
by Zott et al (2011), business model is frequently studied without an explicit definition of the
concept.

In the literature, the term business model can be referred to as a conceptual tool
(George & Bock, 2009), a method (Afuah & Tucci, 2001), or a framework (Afuah, 2004),
among others (Seelos & Mair, 2007; Timmers, 1998). For this paper, the definition of
business model adopted was presented by Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010) as the rationale of
how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. In this sense, business model
innovation is more systemic in nature than product and/or process innovation, for instance, as
it concerns the alignment of the customer value proposition with how value is created and
captured (Velu & Stiles, 2013), including a firm’s position and role in the value network.
According to Velu (2015), this may result in less predictable challenges for firms due to the
complexity involved.

A growing number of businesses are starting to consider and embed challenges and
opportunities to work with sustainability in some way, whether adopting sustainability values
or new management systems (França et al, 2017). In order to shift from unsustainable to
sustainable, a company must realign its system components around a new conceptualization
of value, since the value definition determines whether sustainability issues are considered to
lie within a firm or not (Bolton & Hannon, 2016; Rauter et al, 2017). In this context, business
models must be adapted or extended in order to incorporate social and environmental issues
perceived to be relevant for organizations to become sustainable (Stubbs & Cocklin, 2008;
Rauter et al, 2017). Consistent with Lüdeke-Freund (2010), a business model that creates
 57

competitive advantage through superior customer value and contributes to a sustainable

development of the company and society can be interpreted as a sustainable business model.

In this sense, Bocken et al. (2014) present a model describing mechanisms and
solutions to build sustainable business models. The study points out emerging themes like
technology advancement and level of innovation, innovation in collaboration and the
education in order to facilitate successful adoption of sustainable business models. The idea is
to move the focus from individual firms to a systemic perspective. Trends such as sharing
economy (Benkler, 2012; Botsman and Rogers, 2011; Lowitt, 2013) and circular economy
(Biwei et al., 2013; Su et al., 2013; Lewandowski, 2016) are some of the emerging
approaches on this matter that undoubtedly impact how sustainable business models are
designed and innovated.

In the specific context of the fashion industry, a number of drivers of sustainability

have appeared in the past few years. The Fair Trade concept deals with the way trade happens
by increasing worker revenues at the weakest links of a supply chain and providing decent
work conditions to them (Goworek, 2011, Hutchens, 2013; Jones and Williams, 2012).
Another trend is upcycling, which is the process of creating new value from old or out-of-
fashioned clothes, helping to diminish the production and consumption of new garment
(Binotto and Payne, 2016; Sinha, 2014; Huang et al., 2014; Hemmings, 2010; Kim, 2013).

Following these – and other – sustainability trends, there is a growing number of

business seeking new alternatives for reducing the social and environmental impacts of the
fashion industry. In order to compile these new ways of making business, Todeschini et al.
(2017) created a framework of drivers of innovation in sustainable business models in the
fashion industry and pointed out challenges and opportunities for fostering sustainability in
this industry.

This study is based on a conceptual model presented by Todeschini et al. (2017)

regarding concepts that a business model in the fashion industry has to deal with in order to
innovate in a sustainable way. In the sequence of the literature review, we present some
definitions about this model (Figure 1).
 58

Figure 1 - Sustainable trends and drivers for business model innovation

Source: Todeschini et al. (2017).

According to Todeschini et al. (2017), there are big trends that lead the
entrepreneurial dynamics of innovation in sustainable business models. These trends are
related to the economy, technology, society, researches and environment and are decoupled
into practical concepts so called drivers of sustainable innovation. The drivers describe key
working elements that highlight the sustainable innovations in business models. The
framework composed by the drivers and the big trends was developed after some phases of
the research, including a systematic review of literature about innovation, sustainability and
fashion, interviews with experts, and a research on the specialized press about fashion
business.
 59

The first trend identified in the study is circular economy, which is related to the
development of economic models based on restoration and regeneration. The drivers related
to this trend are recycling, vegan and upcycling. Next, corporate social responsibility is a
trend that spread as the supply chains became globalized, which means that nowadays the
companies don’t have the control about social and mainly labor practices of its suppliers as
they did when the processes were verticalized. The drivers that compose this trend are
sweatshop free, fair trade and locally sourced (Todeschini et al., 2017).

Sharing economy and collaborative consumption are related to a paradigm shift from
ownership to access and experiences that usually happen between people not previously
connected, what was made possible mainly by the technology growth in social networks in the
last decade. Collaboration, second hand and fashion library are the drivers identified in this
trend. Technology is a topic related also to the next trend, called Technology Innovation. This
trend is about product materials and processes, with emphasis in sustainable raw materials,
zero waste and wearables. Consumer awareness is the last trend and embraces the behavior
shift from a consumerist to a more conscious and aware of environmental impacts society.
This trend has a diverse characteristic as it is driven by the consumer, and not by the business
as the formers did (Todeschini et al., 2017).

Although previous research on the topic and the conceptual model shown above
represent alternatives to better manage a sustainable business model, it remains difficult to
explain how the concepts can be translated into practice. This research focuses on this issue,
using case studies from Brazilian firms which are dealing with this theme.

3.3 METHOD

In order to accomplish the goals of the research, case studies were carried out along
with interviews to support the conduction of the research and then the results were analyzed
by qualitative and quantitative analysis. Even though this research was applied in a limited
number of cases, the method resembles a case survey, a methodology that employs a large
number of cases to enable the inference of values for certain variables that describe the
constructs under analysis (Larsson, 1993).
 60

The 21 cases were chosen by a convenience sample, as we couldn’t find a proxy for
the population of sustainability related fashion business to affirm that this is a representative
sample. All the cases are business that sell products or services to the consumer, in a business-
to-consumer model, and have at least one sustainability fashion driver (Todeschini et al.,
2017) in their business models.

The focus of the study is to verify how these businesses are dealing with the concepts
proposed by Todeschini et al. (2017) in their conceptual model of a sustainable business
model in the fashion industry. Specifically, we wanted to verify if the concepts are used in the
cases and how much they are applied in the routine of the business. The cases were chosen in
order to have a sample with different characteristics of business models. The characteristics
analyzed in the sample selection were chosen based on the concepts that define a business
model according to Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010) and some features found in fashion
business. The characteristics used are: (i) if it sells products or services; (ii) if it produces or
outsources what is sold; (iii) operation scale; (iv) if the business begun as a startup; (v)
technology intensity; (vi) level of the value chain articulation; (vii) the stage of the
consumption (pre or post consumption).

The first step of the method was to interview the managers of the businesses asking
them about: (i) the business history; (ii) the current business model; (iii) if there are aspects
related to sustainability and how they are applied; and (iv) questions about the drivers of
sustainable innovation presented by Todeschini et al. (2017). The interviews lasted about one
hour, complementary information was collected from company websites. The second step was
the creation of the scales. For each aspect, performance levels focused on sustainability were
created, generating a sustainability innovation scale for each analyzed aspect. Again, the
researchers evaluated, refined and validated the drivers and respective performance levels
resulting in a single type of scale for all the sustainable innovation drivers. The scale was
based on a perception of the presence of the driver in the analyzed business compared to what
the businesses of the market in general do. The scales followed the rule presented in Table 2,
that shows the level of sustainable innovation regarding each driver found in the business. The
values of the scales (1, 3, and 9) were chosen to segregate the differences between intensive
or high level innovation and a mainstream use of the drivers. If the business did not present
any aspect related to some driver, the value attributed to that case was zero.
 61

Table 2 - Sustainability scale

Value Meaning
0 The business do not present the driver.
1 The business present the driver as the majority of the market does.
3 The business present the driver more than the majority of the market does.
9 The business present the driver much more than the majority of the market does.

Source: the authors.

After that, the cases were evaluated according to the levels of the scales for the
characteristics of the business models and then they were validated by contrasting the results
of the cases in order to change data from wrong outlier values in the evaluation between the
cases. These characteristics were used also to analyze the cases against the score results of
drivers and trends. As well as the values of the scales for each sustainable innovation driver, a
codification also generated for the classification of the characteristics of the business models
(Table 3).

Table 3 - Codification for the business models characteristics

Variable Value Meaning
Production 0 Produces
resources 1 Outsources
0 Product
What is sold
1 Service
It began as a 0 No
startup? 1 Yes
0 Low
Operation scale
1 High
1 Low
Technological
2 Medium
intensity
3 High
1 Low
Value chain
2 Medium
orchestration
3 High

0 Pre – consumption
Consumption
stage
1 Post – consumption

Source: the authors.

 62

The results were examined between trends, drivers and characteristics of the
business models for the cases of the sample. A Pearson correlation index was used to help
highlight the interconnections between these variables and then the results were synthesized,
and some conclusions were proposed. The method steps are presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Method used in the research

Source: the authors.

3.4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section the results obtained and some discussions regarding the research are
presented. Initially, the analyzed cases are described according to the model of Todeschini et
al. (2017). Next, the scales analysis is presented and then the results of the correlation analysis
between drivers, trends and characteristics of the business models are discussed.

3.4.1 Initial analysis of the cases

As described in the method section, interviews were conducted with representatives

of each studied business. In all interviews we asked the interviewee to explain the operation
of the business and its brief history until the moment of the interview. After the initial
explanation, we asked some questions about each construct of the conceptual model, helping
the interviewee to present the panorama of the practices the company has in relation to the
drivers of sustainable innovation. What follows is a brief description of each case:

Insecta: Footwear brand that uses old clothes, recycled plastic bottles and surplus of
the textile production as raw materials. The sale occurs in its own stores, and mostly in the e-
commerce of the brand.
 63

Revoada: The company uses tire chambers as substitutes for leather and nylon from
damaged umbrellas as lining for backpacks, wallets and briefcases. Product sales occur
through the company's e-commerce, partner stores and crowdfunding for limited editions. In
addition, the company provides consulting services about sustainability for other businesses.

Preza: Company that uses waste from the furniture industry to create sunglasses. All
raw materials are ecofriendly and each product is unique, receiving an identification number.
The company manages its own e-commerce and has some sales partners as optics and
jewelery stores.

Green is Great: This company produces clothes for babies and children using natural
and sustainable fibers. The marketing process occurs via social networks and the sale is
carried out directly with the owner and in local fairs.

Closet Detox: Unlike other cases, the value proposition of this company is delivered
through a fashion consulting service specialized in reducing the consumption of customers.
Initially, a sorting of products is made with the customer and then fashion looks are created
that increase the use of the remaining pieces. The eliminated pieces are donated or sold in flea
markets.

O Amor é Simples: Company that produces simple wedding dresses. Doing that, less
fabric is spent. Another important point is that the company encourages local production and
is concerned to ensure the well-being of the dressmakers. The company sells the products
exclusively through their own e-commerce.

Renner: This is a large Brazilian company of fashion retail. There are some
sustainability initiatives such as reverse logistics for used clothes and collections that use
sustainable fibers such as lyocell and recycled fabrics in the firm’s portfolio.

Contextura: It works as a lab for new fashion products. It produces collections of

fashion items in an experimental scale using sustainable raw materials, according to the slow
fashion paradigm. Sales mainly take place in the physical store itself and in partner stores.

Colibrii: They create and produce backpacks with donations from the textile
industry. The workforce is made up of artisans from low-income communities, encouraging
 64

and valuing local production. The revenue is based on the sale of products to individuals and
companies.

Delazeri: Sewing studio that makes women's clothes on demand focused on social
and couture classic clothes, which leads them to adhere to the principles of slow fashion.
Besides that, the company returns to the customer or donates all leftover fabrics that still can
be used.

Recman: Brand of circular accessories developed through the recycling of harmful

raw materials such as discarded tire chambers and fire hoses. The company's goal is to
develop design products that can bring awareness about sustainability to the final costumer.

Vert: Sneaker brand that uses organic or recycled cotton, PET fiber and Amazon
rubber in soles. The company practices fair trade with its suppliers and with the workers in the
factory where the sneakers are produced. Sales occur in their own physical stores and e-
commerce, and in partner stores in Europe and America.

3JNS: The company has a model based on the circular economy concept. It produces
jeans and makes up to three cycles of receiving the product back from the costumer that no
longer wants to use it. Then, the jeans are upcycled and resaled. After the three cycles, the
product goes to recycling.

Panosocial: This company’s workforce is composed by ex-convicts, using ecological

raw material and sustainable processes as a way to reduce criminal recidivism.

Nosso Tecido: It is a market of fabrics that were discarded by the fashion industry.
The material is selected and sold in an ecommerce platform, helping to close the cycle of the
circular economy.

Manui: Starting from the own need of the founder due to a skin disease, the company
began to develop collections in which the main value proposition is the use of natural fabrics
and dyeing from natural herbs such as macela, pau brasil, jaboticaba, etc..

Apoena: Their products are handmade using butiá leaves, which makes each piece
different from the others depending on the characteristics of the leaves used in the product.
 65

Passa Passará: Flea market of baby and children clothing. The purchases from the
families to the store follow a strict sorting in which only products of consolidated brands are
acquired in excellent condition. This ensures a high selling value and a great reputation in the
market.

Enjoei: A second-hand marketplace, where individuals advertise their products in

individual stores like a profile in a social network. Doing that, the platform helps to increase
the life cycle of second-hand products.

Herself: The company developed a product that substitutes menstrual pads using
technological textiles in panties, reducing the consumption of cotton, non-woven fabric, and
other materials used in disposable menstrual pads.

Horvath: Brand of shirts resistant to stain and odor. It contributes to sustainability by

decreasing in the number of washes during consumer usage, which has a great environmental
impact in the product lifecycle.

3.4.2 How trends and drivers are manifested in the cases

In this phase, the 21 cases were evaluated according to the scale of intensity for each
sustainable driver. A table (Table 4) where the rows represented the cases and the columns the
drivers was created to facilitate cross-case comparison.

During the research, it was noticed that many cases that employed the vegan driver,
also used natural raw materials. Therefore, an adaptation in the initial model proposed by
Todeschini et al. (2017) was made adding a more generic “natural” feature to the driver that
initially considered only vegan materials. Given the scale values for each driver, score sums
were generated for drivers and trends. There is a greater score concentration (64%) in the first
two trends: circular economy and social responsibility. In these trends there are also the
drivers with the highest scores: upcycling (17%), vegan / natural (14%), followed by fair trade
(12%) and locally sourced (10%), that is, together they have 52% of the total score. These are
drivers that demand only basic knowledge and technology and have low cost involved in the
execution of its activities.
 66

Table 4 - Cases Evaluation

Circular Economy Social Responsibility Sharing Economy Technological Innovation Consumer Awareness

Cases Evaluation Techn. and

Vegan / Sweatshop Locally Fashion Second Zero Capsule Slow
Recycling Upcycling Fair Trade Collaboration Sust. Raw Wearables Lowsumerism
Natural Free Sourced Library Hand Waste Wardrobe Fashion
Materials

Insecta 3 3 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Revoada 0 0 9 0 9 1 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0
Preza 1 3 3 1 1 3 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
Green is Great 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Closet Detox 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 1
O Amor é Simples 0 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Renner 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Contextura 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Colibrii 0 0 3 1 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Delazeri 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3
Recman 0 0 9 0 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Vert 3 9 0 3 0 3 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 1 1
3JNS 0 0 9 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0
Panosocial 0 0 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Nosso Tecido 0 0 3 0 3 0 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
Manui 0 9 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Apoena 0 9 0 1 1 9 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Passa Passará 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Enjoei 0 0 1 0 3 0 3 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Herself 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 1 0 1 0
Horvath 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 1 1 0 0

Source: the authors.

 67

Given this scenario, one of the hypotheses for the score concentration in the two first
trends is a low entry barrier: these activities can be performed by a larger number of new
players because they do not demand specific knowledge and technology. In addition, these are
activities associated with a previous era when markets were not fully globalized and people
needed to use natural products, bought from local producers following the fair trade precepts,
and were used to renewing old products by practicing upcycling due to the of the difficulty of
acquiring new products.

On the other hand, the trend that had the lowest score was consumer awareness, with
5% of the total score, which reinforces the results of the previous research by Todeschini et al.
(2017). In this regard, the authors stated that there still seems to be no consolidated solution in
the fashion industry for consumer awareness issues, so they pointed out as a challenge for the
sector the development of new businesses that deal with raising consumer awareness about
the environmental and social impacts generated by fashion production. In addition, they
suggested that this subject should seek for an effective way to reward the consumer for the
voluntary simplicity behavior, which refers to the careful use of consumer goods (Alexander
& Ussher, 2012), which is a powerful way to decrease the fast cycle of production,
consumption and disposal and then decreasing also the consumption of natural resources
(Ruppert-Stroescu, 2015).

The drivers that had the lowest scores were Zero Waste, Wearables and Capsule
Wardrobe, which together got only 2% of the total score. Two of them are related to
technology and one to consumer awareness. Regarding technology drivers, one of the issues
raised in some interviews is that the use of technology and the application of sustainable
concepts can be contradictory, since using technology may seem to make intensive use of
resources such as energy and low use of human labor, thus causing social harm with
unemployment.

The trend that had the most unequal distribution was Technological Innovation, with
83% of its score concentrated in the driver Technological and Sustainable Raw Materials.
Zero Waste and Wearables technologies had scores close to zero, evidence that these
technologies are poorly developed in the cases studied in this research. Technologies for
sustainability in fashion are still sparse, and many of them are in the initial development phase
in the cases they can reach a potential for commercialization in startups. The most advanced
 68

developments in this area are, in fact, in new materials for the production of clothes and
accessories. An example of this is the case presented by Todeschini et al. (2017) of the Italian
startup Orange Fiber, which uses citrus juice byproduct to produce new yarns in a patented
nanotechnology process. This example illustrates the fact that new material technologies have
often been generated in universities and laboratories to become startups. Other business
examples that involve research and development for the creation of new materials are startups
like Evrnu, Vegea and Piñatex. In any case, these businesses are still not ready to serve the
general consumer due to limitations of raw material availability, installed capacity and, in
many cases, delays in the patenting process for the subsequent commercialization of the
product, factors that end up increasing the selling price of products that employ these
materials.

3.4.3 Analyzing and discussing the results

The full assessment of the case studies regarding the characteristics can be seen in
Table 5. Two of the characteristics had identical behaviors in the allocation of values for the
analyzed cases: what is sold (product or service) and the consumption stage (pre or post
consumption). This behavior shows that all the companies of the sample that operate
providing consumer services also work in the post-consumer stage.

Regarding the Pearson correlations results found among the variables, three types of
correlations were tested: characteristics x drivers (Appendix A), drivers x drivers (Appendix
B), characteristics x trends (Appendix C). Given the results of the correlations among drivers,
two were highlighted. The first is a 0.80 correlation between locally sourced and vegan /
natural. This means that businesses that make use of one of the drivers also tend to use the
other in their business models, seeking the commercialization of vegan and natural products
made locally. In addition, there is a strong negative correlation of -0.47 between the operation
scale and the vegan / natural driver, which also corroborates this perception. There seems to
be, therefore, a situation in which natural and vegan production fails to expand its market (or
chooses to remain small), which resembles a craftmanship model in relation to operation
scale.
 69

Table 5 - Evaluation of the characteristics of the case studies

It began
Production What is Operation Technological Value chain Consumption
Characteristics as a
resources sold? scale intensity orchestration stage
startup?
Insecta 1 0 0 1 2 2 0
Revoada 1 0 0 1 2 3 0
Preza 0 0 1 0 2 0 0
Green is Great 1 0 0 0 1 1 0
Closet Detox 0 1 0 0 1 1 1
O Amor é Simples 1 0 0 1 2 2 0
Renner 1 0 0 1 2 3 0
Contextura 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Colibrii 1 0 0 1 1 2 0
Delazeri 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Recman 1 0 0 1 1 1 0
Vert 1 0 0 0 2 2 0
3JNS 1 0 1 1 2 1 0
Panosocial 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Nosso Tecido 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
Manui 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Apoena 0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Passa Passará 0 1 0 1 1 1 1
Enjoei 0 1 1 1 3 3 1
Herself 1 0 1 1 3 2 0
Horvath 1 0 1 1 3 2 0

Source: the authors.

Another strong correlation was between collaboration and fair trade drivers (0.82).
This result makes sense given that the collaboration driver considers the work in group
between stakeholders mindset, what leads to a major care with the work and compensations
given to the suppliers, which is an assumption to the existence of fair trade.

Analyzing the correlations between characteristics and trends, there is a strong

correlation (0.75) between the “what is sold” and “consumption stage” characteristics and the
sharing economy trend. This result may mean that selling services and acting in the post
consumption phase are good ways for business to develop sharing economy precepts.
Entrepreneurs that want to have this trend in their business can look for these characteristics
to build or to transform their companies.
 70

Regarding the business effects for the consumer, the comparison between operation
scale characteristic and consumer awareness trend showed a -0.42 correlation index. This
suggests that the bigger is the operation scale, the lesser are its effect in raising consumer
awareness about sustainability. This fact reinforces the challenge presented by Todeschini et
al. (2017) about changing the thoughts and actions of consumers, the ones that create the
demand for all the fashion supply chain. In this regard, we indicate some hypotheses for this
result. First, it may mean that consumers do not believe that big companies are able to be
oriented by sustainable values as many scandals of big companies’ unsustainable practices are
revealed in the media every year. Second, sustainable business models may be linked to
grassroots movements that act in a small pace and thus are not able to scale. Other hypothesis
is that the level of details that have to be cared in sustainable business models is so big that
they cannot spread the operations at the same pace as other fast fashion models do. About
that, the study presented by Pal & Gander (2018) emphasizes that sustainable businesses have
been facing obstacles to scale the business models, as the innovations proposed by this type of
companies contain unscalable value proposition features in its operations and customer
relationship. Some of the features that hinder the potential for scalability are the technological
limitations for closing the loop in circular business, institutional inertia, the immiscibility of
slow fashion precepts and dynamic customer preferences, and the costs of coordinating supply
chains under the conditions of a sustainable business model (Pal and Gander, 2018).

Considering the technological innovation trend, two correlations are highlighted. The
correlation between this trend and the technological intensity was 0.63, which makes sense,
since they deal with similar topics. Besides that, a 0.56 correlation index of this trend with the
characteristic of beginning the company as a startup is another data that reinforces the idea of
startups as scalable businesses based on technology (Blank and Dorf, 2013). Lastly, the
technological intensity characteristic is associated to the use of technological and sustainable
raw materials (correlation index = 0.63). This situation may mean that developing new raw
materials is a promising way to technological innovation regarding sustainability.
Alternatively, it may indicate that the development and use of new materials is the only way
entrepreneurs are employing technology to innovate sustainable business models in fashion.

From the results and discussions presented in this study, an illustrative framework of
a common pathway to sustainability was created for the analyzed cases (Figure 3). We point
the intention of the company to have more sustainable practices as step zero for this path. The
 71

majority of the cases presented evidences of drivers related to Circular Economy and Social
Responsibility. Furthermore, the drivers of these trends are those with the smallest entry
barriers and seem the most developed and mature for practical work. Because of that, these
trends are the step one of the illustrative pathway to be covered by companies that wish to
develop sustainable business models in the fashion industry.

Figure 3 - Illustrative path for sustainability in fashion business

Source: the authors.

Next, issues about Sharing Economy are the following step given the percentages of
scores for this trend. There is a little more difficulty for business to adhere to drivers of this
trend because of the barriers that some companies have for sharing information and aligning
values with partners, suppliers, customers and other possible stakeholders. Additionally,
collaborative consumption, a key aspect of the larger socio-cultural sharing economy
movement, is not always associated with sustainability (Barnes and Mattsson, 2016; Lang and
Armstrong, 2018), which may hinder the positive impacts of sustainable business models in
the fashion industry.

After these values and practices are infused in a business model, the third step
involves the Technological Innovation trend. The adoption of technological drivers requires
specific knowledge about methods and technologies as well as investment in technical
resources and assets. As a result, advancing to this step may require external funding and a
perspective of rapid growth in operations scale. Finally, a sustainable fashion business model
 72

may advance in the Consumer Awareness trend, which already seems to be a great challenge
for the studied companies given the scores in this area and the lack of familiarity of the
interviewed people with this topic. Reaching this level of maturity in business model
sustainability may require a strong brand associated with sustainability values, which again
points to larger, established companies further along their growth trajectories.

3.5 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THIS STUDY

This research systematized results from an empirical study about sustainability

actions aiming to quantitatively analyze fashion case studies. For that, sustainability intensity
scales for fashion business were created, thus enabling the analysis of the cases given the
theory presented by Todeschini et al. (2017). As a result, a pathway to guide fashion business
wishing to develop and implement a sustainable and innovative business model in the fashion
industry was proposed.

Among the conclusions, it is emphasized that the studied cases already incorporate
many drivers of Circular Economy and Social Responsibility. These concepts are largely
diffused among the analyzed cases because they have been discussed for a longer time than
the other trends and because they embrace activities of relatively easy implementation that do
not require large investments in technical resources and specific knowledge. On the other
hand, there seems to be a widespread lack of knowledge and resources to advance in
technology drivers and a small number of initiatives that make intensive use of consumer
education and awareness drivers.

A contribution to the conceptual model of Todeschini et al. (2017) used as the basis
for the application of the scales was generated during the assessment of the cases: as many of
the cases had natural raw materials concomitant with vegan ones, an adaptation of the initial
model was made, adding the natural characteristic to the driver that initially considered only
sustainable innovations with more strict vegan characteristics. Thus, the application of the
model using scales for real cases allowed an improvement of the model for future
applications.

As a limitation of the study, we highlight the use of a convenience sample of

companies for the application of the scales. Despite this, some implications can be generated
 73

from the results obtained. Fashion entrepreneurs can use the insights generated in the research
to analyze how much their business has been addressing the themes summarized in the
sustainability drivers and trends using the examples of the 21 companies studied. We suggest
that future research proceed with a similar empirical evaluation of cases using a representative
sample of a country, region or business population so that the results can be generalized, thus
providing a true map of sustainable and innovative fashion business models.

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3.7 APPENDIX

3.7.1 Appendix A – Correlation index between characteristics and drivers

It began
Characteristics x Production What is Operation Technological Value chain Consumption
as a
Drivers resources sold scale intensity orchestration stage
startup?
Recycling 0.34 -0.22 -0.19 0.07 0.24 0.33 -0.22
Vegan / Natural -0.16 -0.26 -0.24 -0.47 -0.14 -0.18 -0.26
Upcycling 0.34 -0.12 0.14 0.37 0.00 0.02 -0.12
Sweatshop Free 0.15 -0.49 -0.30 -0.25 -0.03 -0.03 -0.49
Fair Trade 0.04 0.20 -0.07 0.31 -0.03 0.34 0.20
Locally Sourced -0.21 -0.27 -0.20 -0.36 -0.19 -0.22 -0.27
Fashion Library -0.47 0.98 0.29 0.02 -0.06 -0.04 0.98
Second Hand -0.34 0.70 0.17 0.27 0.14 0.17 0.70
Collaboration 0.20 0.00 -0.11 0.15 0.10 0.37 0.00
Techn. and Sust.
0.29 -0.17 0.54 0.29 0.63 0.16 -0.17
Raw Materials
Zero Waste -0.02 -0.16 0.15 -0.02 -0.05 -0.21 -0.16
Wearables 0.31 -0.16 0.51 0.31 0.62 0.19 -0.16
Capsule Wardrobe -0.02 0.26 0.15 -0.02 0.17 -0.01 0.26
Lowsumerism -0.14 0.30 0.14 -0.36 -0.01 -0.09 0.30
Slow Fashion -0.29 -0.02 -0.26 -0.43 -0.26 -0.18 -0.02
 79

3.7.2 Appendix B – Correlation index among drivers

Techn. and
Vegan / Sweatshop Fair Locally Fashion Second Zero Capsule
Drivers x Drivers Recycling Upcycling Collaboration Sust. Raw Wearables Lowsumerism
Natural Free Trade Sourced Library Hand Waste Wardrobe
Materials

Vegan / Natural 0.32

Upcycling -0.12 -0.25
Sweatshop Free 0.31 0.32 -0.34
Fair Trade -0.28 -0.27 0.55 -0.38
Locally Sourced 0.08 0.80 -0.11 0.23 -0.05
Fashion Library -0.24 -0.28 -0.03 -0.49 0.18 -0.30
Second Hand -0.16 -0.19 -0.17 -0.34 0.26 -0.20 0.69
Collaboration 0.00 0.03 0.55 -0.18 0.82 0.10 0.00 -0.01
Techn. and Sust. -0.14 -0.17 -0.21 -0.15 -0.22 -0.17 -0.18 -0.12 -0.17
Raw Materials
Zero Waste -0.15 -0.12 0.32 0.02 -0.22 -0.18 -0.03 -0.12 -0.08 -0.11
Wearables -0.15 -0.17 -0.21 -0.15 -0.22 -0.18 -0.17 -0.12 -0.17 1.00 -0.11
Capsule
-0.15 -0.17 -0.16 -0.33 -0.22 -0.18 0.24 -0.12 -0.08 0.44 -0.11 0.45
Wardrobe
Lowsumerism 0.07 0.02 -0.22 0.03 -0.16 -0.15 0.28 -0.16 0.00 0.19 -0.18 0.20 0.20
Slow Fashion 0.01 0.00 -0.22 0.09 -0.17 -0.13 -0.04 -0.15 -0.07 -0.14 0.10 -0.13 0.10 0.57
 80

3.7.3 Appendix C – Correlation index between characteristics and trends

It began
Características x Circular Social Sharing Technological Consumer Production What is Operation Technological Value chain
as a
Tendências Economy Responsibility Economy Innovation Awareness resources sold? scale intensity orchestration
startup?
Social Responsibility 0.51
Sharing Economy -0.08 0.17
Technological
Innovation
-0.31 -0.36 -0.23
Consumer Awareness -0.23 -0.31 -0.11 0.10
Production resources 0.22 -0.07 -0.27 0.29 -0.25
What is sold? -0.34 -0.21 0.75 -0.18 0.17 -0.51
It began as a startup? -0.12 -0.29 0.15 0.56 -0.07 -0.03 0.23
Operation scale -0.06 -0.11 0.25 0.29 -0.42 0.62 -0.02 0.18
Technological intensity -0.05 -0.16 0.12 0.63 -0.12 0.42 -0.08 0.63 0.55
Value chain
orchestration
-0.04 0.08 0.28 0.14 -0.15 0.51 -0.01 -0.02 0.63 0.60
Consumption stage -0.34 -0.21 0.75 -0.18 0.17 -0.51 1.00 0.23 -0.02 -0.08 -0.01
 81

4 CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS

Nesta seção são apresentadas as conclusões e implicações da pesquisa, assim como

sugestões de trabalhos futuros.

4.1 CONCLUSÕES E CONTRIBUIÇÕES

Esta pesquisa buscou identificar mecanismos de inovação sustentável para negócios

de moda e apontar soluções sobre como esses fatores podem ser aplicados em empresas do
setor. Para isso, o trabalho foi dividido em duas grandes etapas. Na primeira etapa (artigo 1),
foram estabelecidos drivers de inovação sustentável para a indústria da moda, apresentando
aplicações e apontando desafios e oportunidades para o setor. Esta etapa contemplou os três
primeiros objetivos da pesquisa: (i) avaliar como ocorrem as inovações em sustentabilidade
no setor; (ii) de que maneira elas se manifestam para o mercado; e (ii) identificar em nível
agregado oportunidades e desafios que tipicamente influenciam o sucesso de modelos de
negócio inovadores e sustentáveis na indústria da moda.

Já na segunda etapa (artigo 2), foi realizada uma análise com viés tanto qualitativo,
uma vez que gerou estudos de casos, como quantitativo, por transformar as atividades de cada
negócio em escalas de inovação sustentável e gerar análises de correlação entre os casos
analisados. Com isso, a segunda etapa da pesquisa contemplou o quarto objetivo específico:
(iii) gerar uma análise quantitativa de inovação sustentável em empresas da indústria da
moda.

De maneira geral, o artigo 1 buscou apresentar o estado da arte sobre inovação em

modelos de negócios sustentáveis na indústria da moda. Iniciando por uma revisão sistemática
da literatura, complementada com entrevistas a especialistas e consultas em sites
especializados, conseguiu-se gerar um framework de tendências e direcionadores de
inovações neste assunto. A partir disso, foram realizados oito estudos de casos em startups
brasileiras e italianas a fim de demonstrar como esses conceitos são aplicados na prática. Por
fim, foram apontados desafios e oportunidades para negócios que buscam a sustentabilidade
no setor da moda.
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Já o artigo 2 buscou analisar casos de empresas que utilizam os drivers apontados no

artigo 1 numa análise quantitativa. Essa análise foi baseada em uma escala de inovação
sustentável relacionada a práticas do mercado em que esses negócios estão inseridos. Os
resultados gerados mostram que as empresas analisadas já incorporam conceitos relacionados
à Economia Circular e à Responsabilidade Social, que são abordagens consideravelmente
mais difundidas do que as demais. Como contribuições, um framework de caminho ilustrativo
para a sustentabilidade foi gerado a partir dos resultados obtidos e uma adaptação do modelo
gerado no artigo 1 foi apresentada.

De maneira geral, pode-se afirmar que esta pesquisa contribuiu para a estruturação de
um corpo de conhecimento antes disperso sobre os temas de inovação, modelagem de
negócios e sustentabilidade dentro do contexto da indústria da moda. Ao conectar
conhecimentos teóricos e empíricos, a relação entre academia e mercado fica mais próxima e
mais se consegue contribuir com a realidade de empresas que vêm trabalhando neste tema e
com o desenvolvimento de seus negócios.

4.2 IMPLICAÇÕES E SUGESTÕES DE PESQUISAS FUTURAS

Esta pesquisa aponta algumas implicações para o cenário explorado. Inicialmente,

percebe-se que a maneira como empresas incumbentes e born sustainable se comportam em
relação à sustentabilidade é diferente. Decisões de negócio são tomadas considerando
diferentes premissas para os dois casos, o que gera efeitos distintos na operação do modelo de
negócio de cada caso. Em função disso, os modelos born sustainable têm maior facilidade em
manter valores associados à sustentabilidade no negócio. Além disso, percebe-se que os
incumbentes têm maior rigidez na tomada de decisões, fazendo isso de maneira mais
cautelosa e em uma pequena parcela do negócio, enquanto os born sustainable conseguem
agir de maneira mais rápida em direção à sustentabilidade.

Uma segunda implicação refere-se à cadeia de valor. Por ser um setor com operações
fortemente horizontais, identificou-se que aquelas empresas que buscam ser mais sustentáveis
precisam se conectar a parceiros com os mesmos princípios. Além disso, a verificação de
práticas adotadas na sua cadeia de valor e o tema de rastreabilidade se apresentam cada vez
mais como uma necessidade neste setor, impulsionada pelo comportamento das novas
gerações.
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Além disso, o segundo artigo aponta para uma maior facilidade por parte das
empresas em aplicar conceitos relacionados à Economia Circular e Responsabilidade Social
do que aqueles relacionados às demais tendências. Essas evidências sugerem que há ainda
uma lacuna para o desenvolvimento de iniciativas relacionadas a tecnologias, colaboração e
consciência do consumidor. Esta lacuna, por um lado, pode ser motivada pela falta de
interesse das empresas em despertar a consciência do consumidor, o que os levaria para um
movimento contrário ao atual fast fashion empregado pela maior parte das empresas do setor.

Por outro lado, questões relacionadas a tecnologias e colaboração parecem não estar
sendo explorados por falta de conhecimento das empresas sobre como gerar soluções nessas
áreas, ou mesmo por falta de aceitação por parte do público consumidor. Nesse contexto,
ainda se percebe uma distinção entre negócios escaláveis e sustentabilidade, num cenário em
que sustentabilidade remete a modelos artesanais de produção. Para se tornarem escaláveis, os
negócios analisados enfrentam uma significativa barreira de entrada relacionada ao
conhecimento de e investimento em tecnologias de produto e da informação, além da natural
desvantagem competitiva em relação aos incumbentes. Este cenário ilustra a importância de
um ecossistema de negócios voltado à criação de um relacionamento entre incumbentes e
negócios born sustainable. Neste sentido, um ambiente de compartilhamento entre negócios
facilitaria o compartilhamento de conhecimento e recursos e o estabelecimento de esforços
colaborativos que viabilizassem o processo de experimentação de modelos de negócios e por
conseguinte o processo de inovação. Com isso, alianças de colaboração entre esses atores
numa estrutura de inovação aberta seria benéfica para a indústria como um todo.

Para pesquisas futuras, sugere-se uma maior exploração das grandes tendências
identificadas e sua relação com a sustentabilidade na indústria da moda, gerando pesquisas
aprofundadas sobre como essas tendências podem gerar efeitos mensuráveis em questões
sociais e ambientais. Outra sugestão relacionada à primeira etapa da pesquisa seria a análise
de casos que, no futuro, venham a atender as expectativas levantadas nos desafios e
oportunidades em sustentabilidade para a moda.

O trabalho realizado na segunda etapa pode ser complementado com uma quantidade
ainda maior de casos, seguindo os padrões de um formato de case survey. Além disso, sugere-
se realizar uma análise contemplando uma amostra representativa de uma região ou país,
como forma de possibilitar que outros negócios consigam alinhar suas estratégias com base
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em um resultado generalizável. Estudos como este poderiam servir como direcionadores para
a criação de políticas públicas para o setor.

Além disso, sugere-se que estudos futuros apresentem iniciativas e possibilidades de

educação em sustentabilidade para toda a cadeia de valor de moda, desde a educação do
consumidor (já abordada nesta dissertação), mas também voltada a empresários,
colaboradores e um esclarecimento para a cadeia como um todo sobre como evoluir neste
aspecto. Neste sentido, poderiam ser exploradas dificuldades cognitivas no processo de
evolução para uma moda mais sustentável, abordando vieses individuais que dificultam a
adoção de valores sustentáveis.

Esta pesquisa buscou explorar conceitos relacionados à sustentabilidade e não tem a

intenção de entregar respostas definitivas às questões de inovação sustentável para negócios
de moda. Tem, por outro lado, a intenção de criar pensamento crítico por parte do leitor a fim
de analisar o seu contexto, tanto no papel de academia, como no de negócio e como
consumidor, e com isso gerar atitudes mais conscientes dos impactos que cada um gera ao
estabelecer uma relação de compra e venda na indústria da moda. Espera-se, por fim, que esta
pesquisa possa contribuir para o desenvolvimento de negócios de moda que buscam
alternativas com menores impactos sociais e ambientais ao mesmo tempo em que geram
desenvolvimento e prosperidade à sua comunidade, stakeholders e ambiente envolvido.