2.Theoretical Framework
2.1 The rise of Ethical Fashion
Consumers' awareness of environment-related issues and sustainability is growing in combination with their demand for ethical brands and environmentally friendly merchandise (Kong et al., 2020). Consumers, particularly those of the young generation, are becoming highly conscious around information concerning the material source of the apparel they buy (Kanchanapibul et al., 2014). They tend to search for more information about material suppliers before making a purchase to ensure that the fashion supply chain they choose to trust is ethical (Kanchanapibul et al., 2014). However, ethics and sustainability in the fashion industry are considered an oxymoron (Miotto & Youn, 2020). Apparel manufacturers are often accused of being engaged in unsustainable practices. The environmental impact of fashion industries is massive due to its inherent characteristics (Shen et al., 2014). The production process involves high water usage; pollutive chemical dyeing and preparation techniques; a high amount of waste produced during disposal; discharging of toxic chemicals and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Blasi et al., 2020). Thus, fashion industries are also criticized for their fair-trade conditions, being accused of not paying fair wages and providing poor working conditions that violate human rights (Birtwistle & Moore, 2007).
Consumers' enlightenment about fashion industries operation conditions and the public criticism of some international brands, such as Nike and Gap, being accused of producing some of their merchandise in offshore sweatshops led to the increasement of responsible consumerism (Goworek, 2011). According to Danziger (n.d.), responsible consumerism was one of the six global consumer trends in 2019. This shift in sustainable consumption and consciousness provided the basis for the rise of ethical consumers. Ethical consumers can be identified as those who consider the impact that their consumption has on other humans, animals, and the physical environment (McNeill & Moore, 2015). Global warming, climate change, and the unprecedented times consumers experienced with the pandemic significantly increased their need to include sustainability in every part of their lives. According to Mortimer (n.d.), the latest IAG New Zealand Ipsos poll found that almost four out of five people (79%) say climate change is an important issue for them. An international study of 20,000 customers by grocery brand giant Unilever identified one in three (33%) people were choosing to buy from brands they believe are doing environmental good. Consumers are increasingly concerned about their purchases' social impact, and they are willing to pay premium prices for ethical products (Kong et al., 2020). In response to this global interest, some brands engaged in new ethical and sustainable regulations.
Consumption changes and multiple media reports around fashion industries' environmental impact paved the way for the creation of an ethical clothing market (Goworek, 2011). According to Joergens (2006), ethical fashion can be defined as "fashionable clothes that incorporate fair-trade principles with sweatshop-free labor conditions while not harming the environment or workers by using biodegradable and organic cotton" (p.361). Ethical fashion is a broad concept that is used interchangeably with many other terms such as sustainable clothing, sustainable fashion, green fashion, and eco-fashion, all of them referring to conscious fashion practices (Joergens, 2006). There are various ways to identify sustainable fashion. Some of them include: textiles made by recycled materials; organic materials; transparency around materials sources and garment manufacturing; fashion that considers animal care; fair-trade fashion, and vintage fashion (Kim & Oh, 2020). However, the ethical fashion definition can be ambiguous because of its misuse by some fashion brands that define themselves as ethical while still engaged in unsustainable practices. Fashion industry has a complex supply chain that is considered less transparent than other sectors (Blasi et al., 2020). In this sector, there is difficulty in monitoring how all the suppliers work and considering all the environmental and social aspects, from fair working conditions to the garments' after-treatment and disposal.
From luxury to non-luxury and to fast fashion, fashion industries started to adopt sustainable techniques to reduce their environmental impact and enhance their workers' living conditions (Kong et al., 2020). Luxury brands are sometimes indistinctly perceived as synonymous with sustainability due to their timeless and high-quality products (Bae, 2019). Contrary to fast fashion brands that are engaged in mass production of affordable and trendy clothes that are not produced to be worn more than ten times (Miotto & Youn, 2020). Burberry is defined as a luxury brand. The company launched a sustainable agenda and committed to reducing its environmental impact and contributing to climate change by 2022 (Bae, 2019). Burberry publicly shared its agenda and commitments for a better future. Despite their efforts, the company encountered a backlash after the media revealed that the brand burned 38 million dollars worth of unsold garments in September 2018 (Bae, 2019), recanting their sustainable claims with their actions. Simultaneously, fast fashion brands such as H&M, Zara, and Uniqlo launched conscious collections to meet the consumers' new ethical demands. For instance, H&M, a Swedish multinational retail company, announced their commitment to transforming all the materials used in their garments into renewable ones by 2030 (Kim & Oh, 2020). However, according to The Independent (n.d.), new materials are much more sustainable than using many sustainable yarns already available on the market. As they stated, a fashion that "fast" can never be sustainable (Independent, n.d). Media are wide awake, monitoring all the efforts of fashion companies ready to detect misleading messages. To tackle the challenge of being criticized in every step, fashion companies incorporated new marketing strategies.
2.2 The rise of green marketing
The growth of sustainable consumption increased environmental legislation and media exposure of ecological disasters (Paço & Reis, 2012). Consumers' need for environmentally responsible industries and stakeholders' tendency to invest in green sectors led to the rise of corporate environmentalism and green marketing strategies implementation (Jain & Kaur, 2004). As defined by Polonsky (1994), green marketing refers to "all activities designed to generate and facilitate any exchanges intended to satisfy human needs or wants, such that the satisfaction of these needs and wants occurs, with a minimal detrimental impact on the natural environment" (p.2). Companies can apply green marketing to positively contribute to environmental and climate change and respond to the rapidly changing consumer needs. Thus, green marketing definition is not restricted to environmental claims and packaging development. It incorporates a broader meaning that encloses all those marketing activities needed to establish and sustain consumers' green attitudes and behaviors (including brand identification, green consumer trust, and demand for green products) in an environmentally friendly way (Jain & Kaur, 2004).
Companies may build a green brand identity in order to promote their reduced environmental impact and establish their brand as eco-friendly (Hartmann et al., 2005). The power of consumers' green purchase behavior and the dramatic increase of green product sales stimulated companies to change their marketing strategies and engage in green marketing to satisfy consumers' informational needs around green production. According to Chen (2010), there are five reasons businesses engage in green marketing strategies: to accept environmental pressures; to gain a competitive advantage; to strengthen their brand image; to pursue new opportunities, and to increase product value. A well-implemented green strategy can enhance a company's socially responsible image, making it hard to imitate (Jain & Kaur, 2004). As mentioned above, the apparel industry has been criticized for its' socially responsible behavior, having a detrimental environmental impact, and jeopardizing workers' well-being (Birtwistle & Moore, 2007; Blasi et al., 2020; Shen et al., 2014;). However, in the last decades, an increasing number of fashion companies change their business model by partly engaging in green marketing. For instance, Bartels et al. (2020) reported that global retail sales of fair trade-certified products almost doubled between 2008 and 2015, reaching 7.3 billion, while fair-trade sales in the U.S. increased by 33% in 2015.
The manufacturing of eco-friendly apparel is an important strategy for fashion companies as it provides the chance to obtain a competitive advantage. Eco-design can increase customers' interest and loyalty (Shen et al., 2014). According to Chan and Wong (2012), green marketing could promote eco-fashion consumption. Nevertheless, a well-structured company deems sustainability as a chance to enhance social responsibility and as a key to corporate survival (Shen et al., 2014). Long-established fashion brands, including Levi Strauss, American Apparel, H&M, and ZARA, have responded to the growing media and consumer attention around sustainability by modifying their fashion to an ethical one, introducing lines with representative collection names. For instance, H&Ms' conscious collection is a great marketing technique since the name of the collection implies a promise for reducing their negative environmental impact (Shen et al., 2014). The aim of fashion companies' engagement in green marketing was twofold: first, to advertise their environmental claims, and second, to establish their presence in the green market (Yan et al., 2012).
Fashion-oriented consumers are willing to pay more for ethically manufactured garments; thus, they started checking their trademarks to reassure the materials' sustainable source (Phau & Ong, 2007). This has not gone unnoticed by the retailers. To communicate their new environmental image, retailers adopted trademarks such as "eco," "green," "natural," and "organic" to describe the attributes of their products and ensure consumers that environmental legislations and responsibilities are being respected (Phau & Ong, 2007). Trademarks are labels, words, or symbols, that identify a product's source (Berrone et al., 2017). Consumers can find trademarks in almost every textile hanging in a retail store, indicating the source of their materials. However, the number of green labels increased dramatically in the last fifteen years (Gruere, 2013). Since incorporating a green trademark does not require companies to have a specific environmental quality level, sustainable and unsustainable companies can both acquire them with similar costs (Berrone et al., 2017). The increased number and diversity of green trademarks by the fashion industries raised concerns around their reliability.
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