Sustainable Textile Marketing—Editorial

Sustainability has become a vital issue in the textile and garment industry [...]

Sustainability has become a vital issue in the textile and garment industry. Over the years, the sector has implemented various initiatives and practices to reduce its environmental impact [1,2]. Today, almost all apparel brands, retailers, and supply chain partners of textiles and garments encourage sustainability throughout the product lifecycle; in addition, sustainability has become an increasingly important theme for consumers [3]. For instance, one recent comparative study about sustainable textile consumption of young millennials in two countries, the US and China, with data collected from 379 Chinese college students and 590 US college students, revealed that sustainability is a large and influential consumer segment for textile and garment consumption [4].
Product Environmental Footprint regulations at an EU level and among the NYC Fashion Policies are the most up-to-date regulations that impact how marketers market sustainable textiles and apparel. The same goes for the recent Higg Index, which refers to Sustainable Apparel Coalition/Life cycle assessment (LCA) issues faced by H&M and how marketers can/should use LCA data in communication. Thus, it has become harder for textile marketers to encourage sustainability in their advertisements to increase the purchase intention of sustainable textile goods. Marketers should set a higher standard and focus on public welfare and related environmental issues of sustainable textiles to persuade consumers to purchase sustainable textile goods by emphasizing that their purchase decision matters a lot with respect to environmental problems. Hong and Kang established a causeeffect relationship between moral philosophy (i.e., idealism and relativism), moral intensity (i.e., magnitude, temporal immediacy, probability, social consensus, and proximity), and purchase behavior toward environmentally sustainable textile and apparel products for the study of female Korean consumers of textile and apparel products dyed with natural and organic dyes for the development of effective marketing communication strategies. It was found that only the idealism of moral philosophy had a significant impact on overall moral intensity. In contrast, moral intensity significantly impacted consumer purchase behavior toward sustainable textile and apparel products [5]. Thus, textile marketers should stress a higher idealism to ensure higher purchases of sustainable textile goods.
Textile marketers should also have good knowledge of textile materials so that they can be ready to answer the queries of customers or consumers, media, and industry experts. There have been concerns about microplastic pollution in the ocean due to microfiber shedding in home laundering, and most consumers believe that only synthetic fibers are prone to microfiber shedding. This microfiber shedding is not limited to synthetic fibers; it is also related to natural fibers [6]. However, textiles' biodegradability might be another concern. Thus, the biodegradability of textile goods may be an additional perk for sustainability. Some biodegradable polymers, including PLA fiber, have been proposed to be used for sustainable textile materials [7]. However, most of the materials in the market have a lower glass transition temperature and poor elasticity, making it challenging to fully replace existing non-biodegradable fibers.
There is increasing interest in making other synthetic fibers biodegradable using chemical or biochemical methods. However, much is remaining to explore the biodegradability mechanisms and their ability to compost without compromising quality during usage.
Textile recycling, textile-to-textile recycling, or even garment-to-garment recycling might be another approach for sustainable textile manufacturing. There is increasing interest in the industry to work towards a circular economy and there are various developments taking place, such as pilots, to develop new garment-to-garment recycling technologies. The textile fibers obtained from pre-consumer or post-consumer textile waste might be reused to produce new materials with acceptable properties [8]. An interesting study from Sweden revealed that some companies, e.g., Zhejiang Jiaren, offer fully post-consumer chemical recycling of garments via depolymerization [9].
The second-hand clothing business might be an interesting strategy to reduce textile waste. Recently, there has been an increasing trend for apparel and garment resale sites such as Vestiaire Collective. Moreover, some new startups, e.g., Early Majority and Reflaunt, have recently emerged in the second-hand cloth business, suggesting enormous potential. However, to achieve successful business targets, careful, sustainable textile marketing strategies, including but not limited to customer partnerships, innovative revenue streams, and improved fashion and store appeal, are required [10].
Textiles have remained a significant income source for most countries [11]. Even today, in New York only, there are more than 470 sheep, alpaca, and goat fiber farms and a large number of fiber processing plants for converting raw fibers into final products [12]. Moreover, sustainable textile marketers should have updated knowledge about sustainability trends. The trend of fast fashion in recent decades has emerged as a dominant business model, i.e., Shein; it ensures that each garment is available to customers at a relatively low price due to bulk production, causing health-related, social, and environmental issues throughout the life cycle of textile products. Additionally, it yields higher textile waste to be dumped into landfills. Bick et al. discussed the role of policymakers, consumers, industry, and scientists in ethical consumption and promoting sustainable textile production [13]. On the contrary, slow fashion encourages sustainable fashion design and ensures less textile waste and overall human and environmental impact.
Recently, much research has been made focusing on sustainable textile marketing. Karpova and coworkers studied the views on the impact of the fashion environment by analyzing and interpreting comments made by the readers of the New York Times on sustainability, focusing on fashion based on institutional theory [14]. They described how fashion logic is challenged by its moral legitimacy because the values of logical materialism are inconsistent with the importance of sustainability and focus on environmental justice. Multala et al. presented a theoretical microeconomic model of clothing durability standards with which manufacturers may comply by supporting clothing libraries, which can improve overall sustainability by promoting collaborative, sustainable clothing consumption [15]. Wang et al. provided insightful managerial implications to fashion practitioners to formulate product development and marketing strategies by identifying preferred product attributes from the consumer-centric perspective [16]. We received many wonderful publications in this Special Issue of Sustainability focusing on the theme of sustainable textile marketing; in addition to these research works presented below, there is yet more to explore in this research area.