Incorporation of circular economy concept to the apparel industry: literature review

Abstract

The apparel industry is one the most foreign exchange earning industries for developing countries. However, it is one of the notable polluting industries in the world too. Additionally, there are numerous factors affecting the economy of the industry, for example COVID 19, and the industry needs to reinvent from those issues by forcing itself to live. Thus, Circular Economy (CE) can act as a potential solution to address the issues related to both environmental and economic factors of the apparel industry. CE is a business strategy to gain economic benefit, minimise environmental impacts and increase the efficiency of resource consumption. CE concept has been practised in various countries such as China, Bangladesh, Europe, Australia and Germany. However, it is still a novel concept in Sri Lanka even though Sri Lankan apparel industry has a solid reputation globally for their high-quality, reliability, lead time, and social accountability. Introducing the CE concept into Sri Lankan apparel industry will help to overcome the financial issues in a sustainable way. With the intention of introducing CE concept to Sri Lankan apparel industry, this paper intends to review the application of CE in global context and in the context of apparel industry, their benefits and challenges in order to further investigate the suitability of CE concept to SL apparel industry. This paper is therefore based on a comprehensive literature review. Hence, it highlights the literature findings on the applicability of CE in apparel industry, its benefits and challenges when adopting CE into apparel industry. This basic finding will aid to assess the possibility of incorporating CE concept within the Sri Lankan apparel industry. The key findings of the research, environmental gain, economic benefit, resource optimisation and collaboration among stakeholders are the key benefits of CE. The main challenges are expensive, advanced technology, measuring the benefits especially financially, lack of support, knowledge, awareness, commitment and leadership, systematic regulation, social and cultural acceptance.