Mapping of the circular economy implementation challenges in the fashion industry: a fuzzy‑TISM analysis

The fashion industry creates a large amount of pollution, making it one of the least environmentally friendly industries in the world with an ever-growing adoption of the linear fashion system “take-make-dispose” that continues to exploit scarce natural resources and energy. This advocate shifting to a circular economy to achieve sustainable production and consumption. However, numerous challenges are faced when introducing the principles of circular economy, obstructing the system transition. The ten challenges identified from the literature include poor material and energy efficiency, poor circular design, technological challenges, regulatory pressures, internal stakeholders’ pressures, financial pressures, insufficient human capital, poor management and leadership, lack of external collaborations, and consumer-related challenges. This research aims to identify the level of significance of the challenges identified from the literature to assist top management with formulating a strategy. Decisions will be made and prioritised based on the key challenges to ensure a successful and effective implementation of the circular economy in the fashion industry. To achieve the aim of this research, seven experts within both the circular economy and fashion context are interviewed. Fuzzy Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (Fuzzy-TISM) is used to arrange the challenges into a hierarchy-based model and to illustrate the interrelationship between these challenges. Also, Fuzzy MICMAC analysis is used to map and rank these challenges depending on their driving and dependence power. Based on the findings, regulatory pressures and poor management and leadership are the key challenges with the highest significance level. Therefore, successful and effective implementation of a circular economy requires a change in managerial strategies.