The Business Case for Sustainability: An Application to Slow Fashion Supply Chains

The purpose of this paper is to present and demonstrate an in-depth decision model for companies to utilize when making the business case for supply chain designs, with a focus on integrating sustainability impacts into the analysis. Beginning with a review of sustainable supply chains in the fast and slow fashion industries, a three-dimensional cube provides the framework to integrate metrics related to multiple dimensions. These dimensions are 1) the triple bottom line social, economic, and environmental factors; 2) financial, quantitative, and qualitative metrics; and 3) cost and revenue, market, and strategic impacts. The triple bottom line factors are used as managers that must increasingly demonstrate how a social or environmental process improvement may also have a positive economic result. An illustrative case applied to the slow supply chain is used to demonstrate the process of building the business case for a sustainable supply chain. The model provides a tool for managers who are seeking to analyze programs and process improvements with sustainable supply chain implications. While the example used is for the fashion industry, the approach described is flexible and can be applied to any industry segment.