Browsing by Subject "vaateyritykset"

Sustainable fashion is phenomena that also fast fashion brands have taken as a part of their business plan. Clothing companies tell about their responsibility goals for sustainability development in corporate sustainability reports. These responsibility reports are usually used as a base for marketing texts in clothing companies’ Internet sites, and consumers can base their opinions about a company’s responsibility on these texts. The aim of this study is to research the discourses of sustainable fashion that companies are building in their marketing texts and how the marketing texts’ perceptions of sustainable fashion are related to the concept of sustainable fashion as defined in the study. The qualitative study was carried out using discourse analysis as the study method. The data consisted of three global clothing companies’ marketing texts that were collected from their internet sites and further from the categories that address responsibility. The data was analyzed by searching expressions that could embody sustainability or sustainable fashion. These expressions were then categorized as possible discourses of sustainable fashion. Five discourses of sustainable fashion were found. The discourse of responsibility typified the importance of responsibility to the companies by investing in responsibility by setting policies and by improving the supply chain management. The discourse of presence concentrated on the companies’ social activities such as education and employment of children and women on the production countries. The discourse of collaboration emphasized collaboration as especially positive action to the companies, helping them in building more positive picture and get forward with their actions. The discourse of nature conservation emphasized the reduction of the natural resources and the prevention of environmental problems. The discourse of consumerism concentrated on guiding the consumers on more sustainable activities. Based on the results, the clothing companies’ perceptions of sustainable fashion concentrate especially on securing the ecological and social sustainability. The economical side of sustainability emerged mostly as companies’ desire to keep the prices affordable. The business is not built on sustainability, but instead it can be seen as separate part of the business, which appears for example as separate sustainable fashion collections.