Environmental Impact and Gender Inequality in the Fast Fashion Supply Chain: An Eco-Feminism Perspective

Fast fashion is negligent with its unethical environmental practices and violations of social norms originating in retailers' supply chains. Indisputably, environmental impact and gender inequality present a 'wicked problem'; they cannot be successfully understood in any way that isn't intersectional. There exists a seminal contribution to the Supply Chain Management (SCM) research agenda: Bick et al (2018) present fast fashion as a global environmental injustice issue - the environmental and occupational burdens associated with mass production are disproportionately experienced by those who produce clothing (Bick, et al., 2018). But the intersection of environmental and social abuses in the fast fashion supply chain (SC) demand greater attention as moves towards a just transition are debated by civil society campaigners and the industry. Thus, the deeply entrenched relationship between capitalist destruction of nature and patriarchal oppression of women is ignored, rendering a research gap. This investigation aims to analyse how environmental impact and gender inequality characterise the fast fashion SC: from an eco-feminism perspective; delving into intervening factors that can moderate and mediate the relationship between environmental impact and gender inequalities.
Research objectives as follows:
1- To understand how environmental impact and gender inequality characterise the fast fashion SC.
2- To investigate the relation between environmental impact as part of environmental sustainability and gender inequality as part of social sustainability in the fast fashion supply chains.
3- To investigate and analyse the intervening factors that can moderate/mediate the relationship between environmental impact and gender inequalities.