Practices for environmental sustainability in the textile, clothing and leather sectors: The Italian case

The fashion supply chain is one of the most polluting industries in the world, being a huge consumer of water, electricity and chemicals, and discharging massive quantities of wastes to land. Stakeholders' and customers' pressure on sustainability has pushed companies to transform general environmental sustainability concepts into business practices. However, a few contributions have offered a comprehensive analysis of the practices employed in the fashion supply chain to reduce its environmental impact. In this paper, a theoretical framework for mapping practices for environmental sustainability implemented in the fashion system is presented. The framework is then used to analyse the Italian scenario.