Publications
Here you can find all publications from our research and related research outputs by C&CV team members.
Toward shorter and greener supply chains? Understanding shifts in the
global textile and apparel industry
Felix Maile and Cornelia Staritz
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Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been much talk about a geographical reconfiguration of the global apparel industry. The anticipated transformations range from a shift to online sales and digitalization, low carbon and circular production and supply chain laws, to a ‘de-coupling’ from China, given the US-China trade war and the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Some analysts conclude that these transformations will result in the ‘nearshoring’ or even ‘reshoring’ of apparel supply chains. As part of the Annual Report 2023 of the Research Network Sustainable Global Supply Chains, our paper 'Towards Shorter and Greener Supply Chains' (pages 89-117) investigates to which extent these shifts are materializing, the factors that drive these transformations, and to which extent they contribute to shorter apparel supply chains.
Working Conditions in Madagascar’s Apparel Industry: Comparing Export and Domestic Market Firms
Kristoffer Marslev and Lindsay Whitfield
The apparel export industry in Madagascar is one of the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa, yet limited data exists on the conditions of its 180,000 predominantly female workers. Our analysis of new ILO data generated in 2021 and 2022 shows important variations by end market. While workers in export firms are more likely to do excessive overtime and have inadequate rest time, they earn higher wages and enjoy better social protections such as paid leave, insurance, pension, and maternity than workers in firms producing for the domestic market. These findings point to a paradox in which workers in export firms are more exploited in terms of their labor power but better off in terms of wages and benefits. The paper attributes these differences to the governance dynamics of global apparel supply chains, in which buyers on the one hand require suppliers to meet certain social standards and to comply with domestic labor laws, but on the other hand impose high flexibility demands that incentivize excessive overtime and work intensification.
Current Capabilities and Future Potential of African Textile & Apparel Value Chains: Focus on West Africa
Lindsay Whitfield
African countries export very little of what is traded within apparel global supply chains and across the African continent, except in the case of cotton, but import a large amount of what the rest of the world produces. Most apparel exports from the continent come from North Africa, followed far behind by East and Southern Africa. African countries have the opportunity to build sustainable textile and apparel industries from the start, which can give them a competitive advantage as apparel-supplying countries in South and Southeast Asia do not (yet) have ‘green’ industries. The cost of renewable energy technology is falling and renewable energy technologies to power industries are evolving. New fibre and recycling technologies also offer a window of opportunity to leapfrog into the next generation of technologies. Taking advantage of this window of opportunity requires that the African government look forward and not backward, that they think in terms of building new and not rebuilding the existing textile industries.
The Business Strategies of South African Textile Firms and Global Trends in 4IR and Sustainability Technologies
Lindsay Whitfield and Vuyiswa Mkhabela
This paper argues that the sustainability shift in apparel and textile global supply chains has led to innovations that combine digitalisation and biotechnology in ways that will have bigger disruptive effects on the global apparel and textile industry. It examines the extent to which South African textile firms are adopting 4IR technologies as well as environmental sustainability technologies in their business strategies, drawing on original
empirical materials from a survey of a sample of textile firms carried out in August 2022. The survey findings show a quite limited adoption of 4IR technologies among textile firms, pointing to the structural constraints within the South African textile and apparel industry and the general domestic economy that limit the adoption of 4IR and sustainability technologies. It concludes by arguing that the South African textile and apparel industry is relatively well placed to capitalise on the window of opportunity to adopt the latest fibre and textile technologies and to engage in research and development in these areas.