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Production and consumption of textile garments contribute significantly to environment problems. The purpose of this paper is to perform the evaluation of textile waste generated at Lithuanian clothing enterprises based on statistical data analysis and business cases studies.

For the evaluation of real situation of waste generation in companies, an original methodology was developed and used during investigation. In order to get an overall view, statistical data of waste generation and management in Lithuania were also analysed. Waste accounting covered data such as wastes from unprocessed textile fibres and wastes from processed textile fibres and textiles (not otherwise specified).

The investigation showed that the amount of cutting waste reaches 20-25 per cent of the total quantity of materials used for production. It was found that the waste is not sorted in Lithuanian clothing enterprises and is disposed in landfills in most cases, notwithstanding the positive tendencies of recycling of waste that were observed during past year. However, a practical recycling strategy and broader perception of developing products with greater added value from waste are missing in Lithuania.

In this research, a simple methodology was developed for determining the quantity of the textile waste generated by enterprises, the introduction of which would allow us to expect better results in waste accounting and management. The results of investigation are useful to gain in-depth understanding of waste generation in various countries.

The term luxury and sustainability, within the fashion and textile industries are seldom seen as natural bedfellows. Recently however, the perception of luxury has begun to include a definition left behind in the twentieth century; beautifully hand crafted artefacts valued for the time, skill and design invested in them. It is possible though, for the concept of luxury textiles to embrace this definition and that of the sustainable credentials of a “Cradle to Cradle” (McDonough and Braungart, 2002) mindset (that of a life beyond original creation) and be fashionable. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Utilising a variety of methodologies including case studies, reflective practice and a practice-based approach; this paper examines the use of pre-consumer waste in the creation of new luxury textiles. Several projects are cited, offering examples of collaboration between textile mills and designers in the creation of new fabrics made from luxury by-products. This luxury waste is routinely shredded for automobile seat filling or landfill, however current sustainable thinking encourages a more creative solution to this circumstance. Designers have a crucial role to play in converting an unwanted by-product to one that is highly desirable.

Traditional values of what constitutes a luxury item include the concept of time invested in making a unique handmade artefact. More recently, this premise has been overlooked in favour of branded goods. The slow fashion movement advocates the inherent value of craftsmanship coupled with the ethical use of sustainable and or local materials and processes. The traditional techniques of felting, weave and stitch are utilised to create beautiful, original textiles from discarded waste. By collaborating with local mills, designers provide solutions to something that could be perceived as a problem.

The embedded narrative within these layered textiles provides an original quality and added value, building on their Scottish heritage. The resulting textiles reflect their provenance; the landscape they come from and the people who created them. As a result of purchase, the story continues with the new custodian, adding to the ongoing history of the textile. The design work and collaboration that this paper outlines embodies a transferable model for sustainable upcycled luxury textiles.

Strategic Management, Business Ethics.

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate and MBA/MSc level.

The case accentuates the challenges faced by Geetanjali Woollens in its mechanical recycling business which is proving detrimental to its African business expansion plans. The case is developed from the episodes of divergence in January 2018 when the buyers’ non-acceptance of mechanically recycled products initiated a managerial dilemma between “business sustenance” and “sustainable business” for Geetanjali Woollens. Being associated with the recycling business for more than 25 years, Madhukar Ghosh, the General Manager at Geetanjali Woollen recycling unit, was delving upon practical, supply-chain-wide solutions to generate standard acceptance norms for mechanically recycled textiles. For him, ethical purpose of business existence was equally important as the profit motive. Bringing operational clarity and standardized regulatory framework still seemed a big challenge for international policymakers and torchbearers of environmental responsibility, and Governments and NGOs popularizing green initiatives. Lack of policy guidelines for business behavior was exacerbating the business functioning. Madhukar knew that consistent buyer policies and standard regulatory framework could clear some mist and induce maturity in the concept of circular economy. Some formalizations were expected till the end of December 2018, if the deadlines did not get pushed further.

The objectives of this case are as follows:

• to highlight the limitations that recycled apparel and textile products have and the concerns that emerge for buyers, designers, and consumers, due to these limitations;

• to highlight the myopic business vision with which the recycling business is suffering due to the lack of a formalized regulatory framework, which in turn is creating various system barriers and making recycling business an unattractive proposition;

• to appreciate the contribution of mechanical recycling of post-consumer textile waste as a closed-loop manufacturing technique in recouping the eco-impacts of increased disposal of apparel and textile products; and

• to promote discussions for innovative solutions for limitations and concerns related to substances of concern in the recycling business and deliberations for a more effective tracking of such substances to facilitate buyer acceptance of mechanically recycled products.

to highlight the limitations that recycled apparel and textile products have and the concerns that emerge for buyers, designers, and consumers, due to these limitations;

to highlight the myopic business vision with which the recycling business is suffering due to the lack of a formalized regulatory framework, which in turn is creating various system barriers and making recycling business an unattractive proposition;

to appreciate the contribution of mechanical recycling of post-consumer textile waste as a closed-loop manufacturing technique in recouping the eco-impacts of increased disposal of apparel and textile products; and

to promote discussions for innovative solutions for limitations and concerns related to substances of concern in the recycling business and deliberations for a more effective tracking of such substances to facilitate buyer acceptance of mechanically recycled products.

Teaching formats for both BA/MA students and MBA/PhD students in sustainable entrepreneurship and strategic management are offered in the teaching notes.

This case juxtaposes the company’s core values of gender equality, sustainability and inclusivity, with the financial pressures of expanding global operations in COVID-19 times.

This case illustrates the founding and growth of i-did in the broader context of the global circular textile industry. Being the first company that reclaims value of discarded textiles by making design products out of felt, the dilemma is on how i-did can create a blueprint for sustainable leadership in a scalable (financial) business case.

The learning outcomes of this case are as follows: to understand the concepts of circular economy and social impact and how they can be translated to business; to apply their knowledge of strategy and entrepreneurship for sustainable business innovation; to be able to analyze a company according to the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically around gender issues, inclusivity and diversity; to evaluate opportunities for multiple value creation in business; and to have the knowledge and capacity to create a circular business with the help of the Business Model Template.

This case engages students in critically reflecting on sustainability concepts in relation to i-did (theoretical value) and applying novel business model innovation tools to a real-world enterprise (practical value). The students get the chance to explore the ethical challenges the two entrepreneurial leaders face between short-term economic gains (or maybe even survival) and their core values of (gender) inclusivity, circularity and diversity.

Teaching notes and a summarizing two-pager are available for educators.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the link between underdeveloped and ill-informed sizing practices, fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste. The literature review identifies: issues that limit the effective development and application of sizing systems, the link between the complexities of consumer fit expectations, body image and self-esteem and maps the link between fit dissatisfaction and the creation of textiles waste.

Data analysis draws from a wider study designed to investigate women’s experiences of dress fit and body image. In total, 20 women aged 18-45 years were audio recorded while they tried on a number of mass-produced dresses, and were asked to select one dress, which they could keep.

All the dresses were selected except one style, which failed to satisfy any of the women’s fit requirements. The findings clearly demonstrate why this dress was considered to be unsatisfactory as well as the subsequent link between poor fit and body dissatisfaction.

Findings support the theory that women identify with their clothes’ size and when this link is disrupted it causes discomfort and body dissatisfaction, which, in turn, contributed to rejection of the garment increasing the potential for the creation of waste.

This study is the first to link unsatisfactory fashion sizing practice with the production of textiles waste. The process of capturing women’s interactions with high street fashion dresses whilst trying them on enabled a detailed analysis that contributes new evidence to the debate around sizing practice, poor fit and its impact on body image and self-esteem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the possible application of recycled wool‐based nonwoven material (RWNM) for removal of different dyes that are used in textile dye houses.

The sorption kinetics, the influence of initial dye concentration, pH and temperature are analyzed. Basic, reactive, direct and metal complex dyes are studied.

The sorption properties are highly influenced by the type of the dye owing to differences in their chemical structure and thus, the mechanism of binding to wool. Modification of material with chitosan and hydrogen peroxide improves the sorption capacities and sorption rates but no general trend can be established. Consequently, the sorption behaviour is analyzed separately for each type of the dye.

The results indicate that RWNM can be used as an efficient, low‐cost sorbent for decolorisation of effluents.

This study aims to summarize the trend and overall aspect of Circular Economy (CE) in supply chain management research as a contribution of the previous research towards the CE concept narrowed in perspective, without presenting a specific application. Further, it is explored to identify the research hotspot, knowledge base, topic, landmark and pivot point in this research.

The scientometric mapping of CE in supply chain research papers is analyzed using VOSviewer and CiteSpace software to cover the broader field spectrum and overcome a manual review. The Research papers are extracted from the Web of Science core collection comprising keywords “Circular Economy*” and “Supply Chain*”. A number of 1,092 papers are selected from the reputed journals over 20 years (2001–2021) for review.

The co-operation visualization network analysis initially identifies the descriptive analysis of overall publications, leading authors, countries, institutions and journal sources. The co-occurrences of keywords present the research hotspot. Moreover, the co-citation cluster analysis identifies knowledge base, research topic, landmark and pivot point. Industry 4.0 integrated supply chain, their driver, barrier, challenges and risks need further investigation.

The findings are based on networks visualization analysis principles, which indicate connection, quality and impact of academic works that might be open to accusations. The methodology chosen for the research and findings interpretations are based on researchers' perceptive limitations and subjective judgment.

This review paper covers a diverse view to attain sustainable development goals due to considerable attention from researchers, practitioners and policymakers. Also is expected to set the future direction of the CE in the supply chain research.

Efficient and high-accuracy intelligent color and material sorting systems are the main bottlenecks restricting the recycling of waste textiles. The mixing of waste textiles with different colors will make the reconstructed raw material of textile fiber useless or with low quality. In this study, some challenges about the automatic color sorting for waste textile recycling are discussed. A computer vision-based color sorting system for waste textile recycling is introduced, which can classify the required colors well and meet the efficiency requirements of an automatic recycling line.

There are four aspects, (1) two cameras with different exposure times and white-balance parameters are involved for establishing the computer vision system. (2) Two standard color databases with two cameras are constructed. (3) A statistical model to determine the colors of textile samples is presented in which uniform sampling of pixels and mid-tone enhancing techniques are exploited. (4) The experiments with a number of waste textile samples from a factory in Hong Kong are conducted to illustrate the efficiency of the developed system.

The experiments with a number of waste textile samples from a factory in Hong Kong are reported. The total classification accuracy performs good. The research methods and results reported in this study can provide an important reference for improving the intelligent level of color sorting for waste textile recycling.

It is the first time to introduce computer vision technology to a color sorting system for recycling waste textiles, especially in a real recycling factory in Hong Kong. The research methods and results reported in this study also deliver guidance for designing a computer vision-based color sorting system for other industrial scenarios.

Examines the tenth published year of the ITCRR. Runs the whole gamut of textile innovation, research and testing, some of which investigates hitherto untouched aspects. Subjects discussed include cotton fabric processing, asbestos substitutes, textile adjuncts to cardiovascular surgery, wet textile processes, hand evaluation, nanotechnology, thermoplastic composites, robotic ironing, protective clothing (agricultural and industrial), ecological aspects of fibre properties – to name but a few! There would appear to be no limit to the future potential for textile applications.

Australians consume twice the global average of textiles and are deeply engaged in a linear take/make/waste fashion model. Furthermore the Australian fashion sector has some unique supply chain complications of geographical distances, sparse population and fragmentation in processing and manufacturing. This research aims to examine how Australian fashion small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are overcoming these challenges to run fashion businesses built around core principles of product stewardship (PS) and circularity.

SMEs make up 88% of the Australian apparel manufacturing sector. This qualitative exploratory study included in-depth interviews with three Australian fashion SMEs engaged in circular design practice, and a focus group of 10 Western Australian fashion advocates of sustainability. Analytic coding and analysis of the data developed eight distinct themes.

This study examines the barriers to circular economy (CE) that exist in the Australian fashion sector, and maps the practice of Australian SMEs with circular business models in overcoming these barriers. In CE innovation, Australian SMEs may have an advantage over larger fashion companies with more unwieldy structures. Employing design-thinking strategies, Australian SMEs with a foundation of PS and circular purpose are creating new systems of viable closed-loop business models and design processes.

The themes from this research contribute to the limited literature on circular innovation examples that link CE theory with practice in the fashion sector. The model for circularity maps the practice of three SMEs built around core principles of PS and circularity in overcoming the barriers to CE in an Australian context, and may be used as a visual tool in education and understanding.