Embedding Environmental Sustainability Practices in Fashion Supply Chains for multinational companies and SMEs

Environmental sustainability has become a global requirement that must be adhered to, especially in the high pollution industries such as the fashion industry. The research aims to investigate which companies have embedded environmental sustainability more effectively in fashionsupply chain SMEs or multinational companies. A comparison between SMEs and multinational companies was conducted to facilitate comprehensive and holistic insights. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are utilised, including thematic analysis of interview data and regression analysis of surveys. The interview findings regarding the environmental sustainability practices embraced by SMEs and multinational companies are extremely different from those of previous research. The results showed some differences in environmental sustainability practices regarding product and process design. Findings revealed that both SMEs and multinational companies have almost the same drivers for adopting environmental sustainability practices in terms of market trends and differentiation strategy. The quantitative results established that SMEs have a better performance than multinational companies in several environmental aspects, including transparency, emissions, materials usage, waste, water utilisation, and chemicals usage.