Reconsidering Our Ways
Communicating Sustainable Fashion
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Iris Mohr
In today’s fashion environment, sustainable fashion is a highly debated topic. From a consumption perspective, consumers’ awareness of their environmental and social impact is growing, and eco-friendly products are increasingly available in the marketplace. Consequently, companies’ communication of sustainable practices has become more important in marketing strategies. While the academic literature is unclear as to the meaning of sustainable fashion, there is ample literature that identifies its components. From a consumption perspective, consumers’ awareness of their environmental and social impact is growing. Prior green marketing literature has shown that environmentally conscious consumers who purchase green products are willing to pay more (Kim and Damhorst, 1998). Communication plays a crucial role in educating and promoting sustainable fashion. Yet, the concept of sustainable fashion remains unclear to many shoppers as the term can mean various things to different people, as there are many forms and ways of viewing sustainable fashion, including making clothing in an ecofriendly manner, as well as advocating purchasing secondhand/vintage, swapping clothes, or renting or borrowing clothes as opposed to purchasing newly produced clothes. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of communication in promoting sustainable fashion and to investigate the promotional strategies companies use to communicate sustainable practices. Preliminary background research of media communication is explored to provide the basis of direction. Using case study methodology, this article considers company communication of sustainable fashion. Actions are recommended for brands and policy makers. A theoretical model and managerial implications are provided.
Advancing on Circular Economy: The Perspective of Plastic Containers and Packaging Regulations in Chile
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Miesing, Juan Espinosa, Jorge Feregrino, Pablo Isla, Rodrigo Sion Sierra, Valentina Meza Sánchez
This paper investigates the action model -Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2016)- for a systemic transformation in the use of plastic material in Chile. The paper provides data for the sizing and understanding of the current situation of plastic containers and packaging (C&P) products from the perspective of the Circular Economy (CE) applied to Chilean reality. Authors produces a general economic based analysis about actual and potential effects of Law 20.920 and a CE Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2016) model on plastics C&P - containers and packaging. The study uses industrial association data on production, consumption, and plastic waste from government and other non-governmental sources. Moving towards a new plastic economy requires clear steps in redesign, innovation, and transformation towards reuse and recycling. In this context, recycling could open a way of transforming a total of 265,400 tons/year of plastic, an amount that represents 50% of the total weight of Chilean production. Results of this study show that participation, information and the use of logistics chains; between the actors involved in the life cycle of these products; could shed light on how Chilean organizations could adapt in their movements, using the principles of the CE. To the authors known, this is the first study that investigate a CE model for the Chilean plastic C&P case. This study comes to fill the gap about current developments in CE offering a systemic analysis that could serve as the base for future studies of other Latin American countries and its transformation towards CE.
Levers to Reduce Hibernation of Cell Phones: Exploring Dutch Behavior
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dirk Inghels
Mobile phones contain valuable minerals. However at the end of their useful life, these minerals are nearly not recovered since most of the mobile phones are stored at home aka hibernated. This is a significant eco-inefficient behavior compared with end-of-life recovery performance of other valuable products such as cars. Accurate hibernation rates per country or region do not exist but are assumed to be more than 40%, making it an interesting waste stream to improve on recovery. This paper presents the results of the hibernation behavior and drivers of mobile phone owners in the Netherlands. Technical and functional obsolescence appears to be the main driver to replace a mobile phone. About 61% of the respondents keep their discarded mobile phone at home mainly to be used as a spare phone. These results confirm recent similar survey results discussed by Marthino et al. (2017) for Portugal, Wilson et al. (2017) for the UK and Wieser et al., 2018 for Austria. Our research showed that the more valuable the discarded mobile phone is assumed to be, the less willingness to recycle mobile phone owners are. Moreover financial incentives are shown to be the best driver to increase recyclability followed by better service to transfer data from the discarded to the new mobile phone. Environmental drivers such as better understanding of the ecological contribution when recycling or exactly knowing what will be done with the recycled discarded mobile phone are the weakest driver to improve recyclability
