Collaborative fashion consumption and its environmental effects

TLDR

This paper establishes a conceptual framework for collaborative fashion consumption (CFC) as a route to more sustainable clothing, defining its typology and outlining its potential environmental impacts. The authors develop the CFC typology and environmental‑effects framework through a literature review and a combined deductive‑inductive process that adapts existing structures and illustrates them with practical examples. The study offers the first dedicated examination of CFC types and their environmental effects, providing a definition, typology, and assessment structure that serve as a conceptual basis for future empirical research and a practical checklist for sustainable collaborative consumption.

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide the conceptual basis of collaborative fashion consumption (CFC) as a possible path toward more sustainable clothing. A definition and a typology of CFC are introduced and possible environmental effects of CFC are structured and discussed. This provides a solid conceptual basis for future empirical studies on CFC as an element of more sustainable consumption. Design/methodology/approach This paper is written mainly based on a review of the more recent literature on collaborative consumption, as well as of older papers about related concepts like sustainable service systems and eco-efficient services. The proposed CFC typology and the structure of environmental effects are developed using both a deductive and an inductive process, and then by transferring existing structures to this specific field and challenging them by assigning practical examples. Findings The main contributions of this paper are the definition and typology of CFC and the structure for assessing its environmental effects. Research limitations/implications The findings provide a conceptual basis for future empirical research on CFC. Practical implications For practitioners, the CFC typology and the structure of environmental effects could be used as checklists for future development of more sustainable collaborative consumption offers. Originality/value This paper makes a unique contribution to the concept of CFC. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first paper that has been explicitly dedicated to examining different types and environmental effects of CFC.