Advancing sustainable apparel product development : addressing environmental, social, and economic challenges

Abstract

Bangladesh's apparel industry, which has contributed 84% of the export volume and provided employment to more than 4 million people, experiences environmental destruction, social imbalances and economic strains in the backdrop of the world's reduced sustainability. The current thesis discusses sustainable product development in the Masco Group, the prominent knitwear and denim producer, through the prism of Triple Bottom Line (TBL), Circular Economy (CE), and Sustainable Supply Chain Management models. This is a pragmatic and abductive mixed-methods case study that combines literature review, secondary industry/Masco data and questionnaires completed by 50 stakeholders, and analysed using Excel and NVivo. Results indicate a high level of internal commitment: 93.5% are sustainability oriented, 97.8% are investment oriented. Interdependencies between TBL are the major barriers (71.7% consider all factors equal), aggravated by the absence of suppliers (71.7% is the main challenge). There is optimism in balancing between sustainability and quality (93.5%) and cost (80.4%) through collaboration. Masco is ready to become a frontrunner of the RMG sustainability, including the recommendations of a Sustainable Supply Chain Unit, financing suppliers, TBL governance, and blockchain to increase the resilience, profitability, and SDG alignment (8, 12), providing a scalable sector model.