Modeling the supply chain sustainability imperatives in the fashion retail industry: Implications...

The resilience of established business strategies has been tested in the wake of recent global supply chain upheavals triggered by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine combat, Hamas-Israel war, and other geopolitical conflicts. Organizations are …
Eloise Gerhold · 16 days ago · 8 minutes read


## Main### Overall topic/titleModeling the supply chain sustainability imperatives in the fashion retail industry: Implications for sustainable development### First subtopicHistorical context and industry status### Content paragraphsThe resilience of established business strategies has been tested in the wake of recent global supply chain upheavals triggered by events like the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine combat, Hamas-Israel war, and other geopolitical conflicts. Organizations are compelled to integrate sustainable practices into their supply chains to navigate the complexities of the post-COVID-19 era and mitigate the far-reaching consequences of such disruptions. However, exploring supply chain imperatives from sustainability dimensions still remains underexplored, presenting a significant research gap, particularly in the fashion retail sector.In response, this study aims to pioneer an innovative approach by amalgamating Pareto analysis, Bayes theorem, and the Best-Worst Method to evaluate sustainability imperatives comprehensively. Focusing on emerging economies like Bangladesh and its fashion retail industry, this methodology synthesizes insights from literature reviews, expert feedback, and Pareto analysis to curate a definitive set of influential imperatives. Finally, the Bayesian Best-Worst Method is applied to examine them. The results reveal the availability of government support schemes to promote sustainability, developing strategic supply chain interventions to ameliorate the impact of disruptive events, and digitalizing the supply chain as the most monumental imperatives under economic, social, and environmental perspectives, respectively. The study's innovative methodology and its implications for sustainable supply chain management offer valuable insights for both academic research and practical application, presenting a strategic blueprint for the fashion retail industry to navigate and thrive in the post-COVID-19 era.### Optional quote or additional contentThis work can not only advance the theoretical understanding of supply chain sustainability but also provide actionable guidance for industry leaders in developing robust, resilient, and sustainable supply chain strategies.### Second subtopicSustainability and the Bangladesh fashion industry### Content paragraphsThe global supply chain (SC) has encountered several phases of chronic disruptions, starting from the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent Russia-Ukraine war and war in the Middle East, resulting in intermittence or halt in the production process and interrupted raw material supply [1, 2]. Wars have always brought adverse effects on the SC, fueled by production disruption, transportation outages, and supply disruptions [3]. Major fashion brands, e.g., Zara, Nike, and H&M, withdrew their operation from Russia in March 2022, which caused worry to fashion clothing manufacturers in Asia, including Bangladesh and Vietnam, where Asian nations will lose close to $1—2 billion or more in export profits [4]. The rising costs of crude oil and fuel have caused detrimental effects on the fashion SC as labor costs have increased due to inflationary pressures. The Russia-Ukraine war and the precedent of COVID-19 are leading to a global slowdown in the fashion industry [5]. The emergent energy crisis disrupted the fashion or clothing SC as 58% of executives think that the fashion market will weaken due to re-routing of trade, delay in delivery to European markets, use of sea instead of water, increase in freight expenses caused by sanctions on using seaports, and overall rising of cotton and cashmere prices by 30% to 45% [6].From Bangladesh's perspective, the war is feared to reduce the export-import business with Russia. In the fiscal year 2020—2021, Bangladesh exported goods worth USD 665.3 million to Russia, of which clothes were the most [7]. The disruption in the SC is expected to impact the Bangladeshi manufacturers due to the collapse in the SC resulting from heightened oil, gasoline, and ship fare costs. Because of the global value chain's interconnected nature, disruption in one country has far-reaching effects on the overall international SC. More than 190,000 US and 109,000 European companies have tier-three Russian or Ukrainian suppliers [8]. Due to the sanctions, there have been widespread adverse effects on the SC operations of these suppliers. For example, the supply chains of electronics retailers have seen prices rise due to the reduced availability of rare earth metals from Russia and Ukraine. Supply chains of car retailers have also been impacted due to a reduction in the availability of palladium, which is used to produce vehicles' catalytic converters [9]. The soaring cost and reduced energy availability have mostly affected energy-based supply chains [10].These non-munificent, i.e., unfavorable environmental contingencies, require an enhanced emphasis by academicians and SC policymakers to ensure sustainability in the face of rampant SC disruptions [10]. In this respect, maintaining sustainability by accommodating a triple bottom line, e.g., social, economic, and environmental sustainability, can help firms maintain resilience and long-term viability [11]. Though several studies have been formulated in recent years considering the emergence of COVID-19, the imperatives leading to sustainability in the fashion retail SC have received very little attention. Primarily due to the new global paradigm shift resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war and recent SC adversities, it is time to focus on the imperatives contributing to sustainability, especially in the fashion retail industry.### Third subtopicMethodology### Content paragraphsThis study followed a Pareto-based Bayesian best-worst method (BWM) approach to address the RQs to identify and model the imperatives related to an SSC. First, a thorough literature review was done to determine the primary SSC imperatives in the fashion retail industry. Secondly, Pareto analysis was performed with the experts to prioritize the SCS imperatives based on their relative importance. Finally, the Bayesian BWM approach was utilized to evaluate the significance of each of the imperatives.The employment of the Bayes theorem and the BWM method offers significant benefits over conventional multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques. The BWM allows for a more straightforward yet deeply insightful comparison of imperatives, reducing the cognitive load on respondents and improving the reliability of the findings. The Bayesian extension incorporates uncertainty directly into the decision-making process, a reflection of real-world complexities often glossed over by other methodologies. This probabilistic approach enables a more flexible and adaptable understanding of SSC imperatives, aligning closely with the unpredictable nature of global SCs.### Fourth subtopicResults and discussion### Content paragraphsThe study identified 18 distinct imperatives to the successful implementation of SCS. Table 1 shows the initially identified imperatives after reviewing the literature. With a comprehensive consideration of literature and expert inputs, 18 SCS imperatives were selected for examination in an emerging economy like Bangladesh. A subsequent questionnaire (Appendix A in S1 File) was designed based on these imperatives and distributed digitally to the same experts for use in the Pareto analysis. Experts assessed the priority weights of SCS imperatives using a 5-point Likert scale. The cumulative scores were evaluated for further investigation, focusing on variables that accounted for approximately 80% of the total score [66]. Through Pareto analysis, the relevant imperatives were refined, leading to the subsequent implementation of the BWM survey. The BWM survey was constructed considering three sustainability dimensions: economic, social, and environmental.Twelve of the eighteen imperatives are considered for further analysis depending on the cumulative percentage score, which collectively encompasses 80% of the overall score. Twelve most significant imperatives to SCS are: "Developing strategic SC interventions to ameliorate the impact of disruptive events(I1)", "Digitalizing the SC (I4)", "Using artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing system (I15)", "Understanding the customer awareness for the sustainable products (I3)", "Ensuring compliance with the health and safety legislations across the SC (I10)", "Increasing the application of big data analytics (BDA) (I2)", "Improving the collaboration among SC stakeholders (I5)", "Exploding use of robotics in logistics and inventory system (I6)", "Availability of government support schemes to promote sustainability (I16)", "Deploying blockchain technology in SC management (I12), "Increasing the application of circular manufacturing (I13)", "Enhancing the resilience of transportation and logistics system (I17)". The finally selected twelve most significant imperatives after the Pareto Analysis are shown in Table 3.As per the initial step of the BWM approach, the twelve imperatives of SCS, chosen through the Pareto analysis, are considered alternatives for assessment within the context of the fashion retail industry. Later, in this study, we categorized the 12 imperatives into three sub-categories (social, environmental, and economic), which were carried out following expert feedback, especially in order to align this study with the three widely accepted pillars of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic). When the survey form was distributed among the participating experts to validate and classify the imperatives, the experts were also asked to vote on which category each imperative should belong to, and the final classification was determined through majority voting. This method ensured that the categorization was both grounded on expert insights and properly aligned with theoretical principles of ‘sustainability’. For each of the three sustainability dimensions, as detailed in Appendix B in S1 File, experts individually designate the "Best" and "Worst" alternatives. Subsequently, the "Best-to-Others" and "Others-to-Worst" vectors are formulated using these expert inputs. These vectors, about the three dimensions, are presented in Appendix B in S1 File.Employing these vectors, a Bayesian-BWM solver implemented in MATLAB is employed to derive the ultimate weights for the key imperatives of SCS. These average weights are computed for each sustainability dimension using the two vectors. Table 3 lists the final consequences for the key SCS imperatives within the economic, social, and environmental dimensions, respectively. It is evident from Table 4 that "Availability of government support schemes to promote sustainability (I16)" holds the highest priority, boasting a weight