Governing sustainability in the garment sector: The European Union’s action agenda

Abstract: The garment sector has increasingly attracted attention over the last years, due to it being an important contributor to the increasing pressure on planetary boundaries. While not only representing one of the world’s largest consumer industries, but also, a growing sector, trends are indicating towards its negative environmental and social impacts rising further. As the call for an urgent paradigm shift has been voiced, the EU has responded to this challenge by offering solutions that act as a subset of the SD framework. The aim of this research was therefore to contribute to the development of coherent policy measures aiming to enhance sustainability of the garment sector. A discourse analysis enabled to investigate the current European environmental policy development, which has been strongly shaped by the Green Economy (GE) theory. The European Commission has utilised the GE theory because it promises a framework capable in reaching a transition towards an economic model that is in line with planetary boundaries. The resulting policy discourse has further laid the foundation for the Circular Economy (CE) and Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) sustainability strategies to arise and be chosen as suitable concepts to address the environmental challenges of the garment sector. An in-depth analysis of two recent European initiatives, namely the EU Garment Initiative and the European Clothing Action Plan, has further enabled an examination of the overlaps and potential reinforcement of the two concepts. What has become clear is that the CE and SSCM concepts should not be competing for attention but rather mutually reinforce each other, as their principles and conceptual elements go hand in hand. The mutual reinforcement of both concepts can therefore offer a more nuanced and integrative approach to finding the right solutions to enhance the overall sustainability of the garment sector at the EU level.