An application of Corporate Sustainability innovation in the fashion industry: The Orange Fiber case.

This dissertation is about the topic of sustainability in the fashion industry and how this concept is linked to Innovation and Corporate Sustainability. Economic sustainability, social sustainability and of course environmental sustainability are topics of great importance at the very moment, in Europe and all around the world. The fashion industry is trying to make an effort when it comes to sustainability by making the products and the business, in general, more sustainable in order to generate a positive impact for the planet and to please the portion of the clients that are particularly sensitive to the topic. The topic will be initially analysed in the first chapter by discussing the strategies that a fashion firm can carry out in order to modify or adjust its business model in such a way to satisfy the sustainability factor. Furthermore will be discussed the structure and the problems that characterize the typical fashion industry's supply chain and the innovations that are implemented in order to solve these problems. The second part will analyse the relationship between the fashion industry and the green strategies previously discussed with Innovation and Corporate Sustainability. The thesis will develop with the comparison of three different fashion companies: Eileen Fisher, People Tree and Stella McCartney. These three companies will be analysed by using the study case technique but using, for the research, instead of interviews and reports just secondary data like tables in order to make the data more clear to the reader. These three companies will have different characteristics, in order to see how different could be the way of approaching this matter. In order to understand better the impact of fashion sustainability and in order to give an example of what sustainability truly means, the Orange Fiber case will be analysed. Orange Fiber is an innovative Italian company that creates sustainable fabrics with citrus juice. Citrus juice is a product that is been generally thrown away, representing hundreds of thousands of tons of precious resources. Orange Fiber started as a start-up in 2014 and now is working with the Italian brand Ferragamo. In conclusion, the dissertation aims at, not only understanding the impact of sustainability on the fashion industry but also at recognizing the issues related to this topic and making clear the benefits of a green strategy.