The ‘Wellbeing Wardrobe’ as a tool to promote just transitions in the fashion and textile industry

ABSTRACT

In this paper we discuss the pressing need for a just transition in one of our most environmentally and socially problematic contemporary industries: the fashion and textiles industry. We detail the current injustices in the industry, from both environmental and socio-economic standpoints, and then move on to providing some suggestions as to how these entrenched problems with the industry could be addressed. Specifically, we identify five key action areas that could take us towards a just transition for the fashion and textiles industry: establishing limits, developing new indicators, promoting fairness, implementing just modes of governance, and creating new exchange systems. We propose policy interventions in each of these five action areas and discuss how they could practically be put into practice. In doing so, we develop a novel theoretical concept for a more just version of the global fashion industry: the ‘Wellbeing Wardrobe’, which draws on wellbeing economics and de-growth thinking applied to the contemporary fashion industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Just transitions
• fashion industry
• sustainability
• wellbeing economics
• de-growth

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editors of this special issue for their care and support throughout the process. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their constructive comments which helped us to improve this paper. All authors would like to acknowledge the European Environmental Bureau for funding the research ‘The Wellbeing Wardrobe'. Dr. Mariangela Lavanga would also like to thank the European Union's Horizon Europe funded project ‘FABRIX - Fostering local, beautiful, and sustainably designed regenerative textile & clothing ecosystems', grant agreement N. 101135638, and the Convergence Resilient Delta Initiative funded project ‘Towards Textile-form Futures' for the opportunity to develop further some of the ideas presented in the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rhiannon Pugh

Rhiannon Pugh is a Senior Lecturer in Innovation Studies at the Centre for Innovation Research at Lund University (CIRCLE) and the Department of Design Sciences. Her work sits at the intersection of innovation studies and economic geography, and she is especially interested in the spatial actualisations and impacts of innovation processes, broadly defined. She is especially interested in how sustainable modes of regional development can be supported through research and policy in different geographical contexts worldwide.

Taylor Brydges

Taylor Brydges is Research Principle at the Institute for Sustainable Futures. As part of the Resource Stewardship team, her research focuses on sustainable production and consumption, the circular economy, and the fashion industry. Working with Dr Monique Retamal, Taylor led the development of the ongoing project, ‘Sustainable Fashion in Australia and sectoral resilience during the pandemic.’ She is also involved in supporting the work of the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence. From 2018 to 2021, she was the PI of the project ‘Circular is the New Black: Investigating the Implementation of Circular Economy Principles in the Swedish Fashion Industry,’ funded by the Swedish Research Council. This research was carried out at Stockholm University, Sweden and the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Australia.

Samantha Sharpe

Samantha Sharpe is Research Director at the Institute for Sustainable Futures. Her research focuses on the employment and labour market implications of climate change and climate action. This includes understanding the process of enterprise and industrial transition to sustainability, at the firm, sector, and labour market levels. Her particular focus is innovation processes, public policy development for just transition. Samantha's work is focused on environmental and social sustainability in the global textile and garment sector and energy sectors. She currently leads UTS’ involvement in an International Labour Organisation (ILO) project on environmental sustainability in the textile and garment sector in Asia and other work on the sustainability and circularity of textiles. She is interested in the public policy settings for sustainability transitions, particularly for labour markets and has led a number of projects examining the public policy dimensions of just energy transition in Asia.

Mariangela Lavanga

Mariangela Lavanga is Associate Professor of Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is the Academic Lead on Fashion Sustainability Transition at the Design Impact Transition (DIT) platform, part of the Erasmus University ‘Strategy 2024’. Mariangela is also the Academic Coordinator of the MA in Cultural Economics and Entrepreneurship as well as co-founder and coordinator of the Minor Fashion Industry. Mariangela researches and teaches on cultural and creative industries and sustainable urban development with active stakeholders’ engagement. In particular, she focuses on the transition to a more sustainable and just fashion and textile industry. She is currently PI in the Horizon Europe project ‘FABRIX – Fostering local, beautiful, and sustainably designed regenerative textile & clothing ecosystems’ with Rotterdam and Athens as case studies. FABRIX adopts a human-centred approach to digital and industrial technologies with an eye for spatial dynamics in a way that would include a more localised and socially inclusive regenerative and innovative manufacturing sector. In parallel to FABRIX, Mariangela is also co-leading the Convergence Resilient Delta project ‘Towards Textile-form Futures’ which focuses on on-demand and local production of circular textile-form systems, such as integrated circular micro-factories.

Monique Retamal

Monique Retamal is a Research Director and Program Lead for Resource Stewardship at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney. She has a background in environmental engineering and social research and fifteen years’ experience undertaking research into sustainable urban systems, including for water, sanitation and solid waste. She specialises in sustainable systems of consumption and production in the Asia-Pacific region. Her research is currently focused on circular supply chains and environmental governance for plastics and textiles. Monique is currently leading UTS’s contribution to an international research collaboration between six research institutions in India and Australia to identify pathways for a circular economy for plastics in India, which includes a focus on policy frameworks and circular business models.