Circular Fashion In Practice: A qualitative study on circular business model implementation in the fashion ecosystem

Sammanfattning: The circular economy entails great challenges and opportunities for the fashion industry. One main aspect of the transition towards circularity is knowing how to capture the value that these new opportunities will create. Currently, the fashion industry is struggling to take concise action when it comes to activating circularity in practice. Thus, looking into circular business models and how the fashion industry is approaching them from a practical perspective becomes essential. In this study, an initial set of principles of circular ecosystem innovation - collaboration, experimentation, and platformization - (Konietzko et al. 2019) are used as a point of departure to understand how circular business models are being implemented across the fashion industry. The findings indicate that the three principles affect and are dependent upon each other, and highlight the relevance of platformization to enable the information sharing required in the transition towards circularity. Furthermore, the empirical evidence indicates that there are dimensions that influence the principles in practice. Based on the qualitative study, our findings suggest that the main dimensions interacting with the three principles are barriers, drivers, and metrics. Finally, the study presents a diverse view on how different practitioners deal with the development and application of these circular business models.