The fashion industry is at a stage of profound transformation of its operating paradigm. Because of their stakeholders’ pressure, companies have begun to pursue strategic solutions that include sustainability as a guiding principle. Such strategies push for effective organizational solutions and production models that take into consideration the conservation of the planet’s resources, respect for people, and the sustainability of their profits. In this context, the fashion industry is now recognizing the circular economy (CE) as the primary BM to address sustainability-related industry issues. The authors have adopted a specific technological-driven perspective that attempts to analyze today’s context and map digitally driven practices in European fashion companies. These practices are emerging to support fashion organizations so that they can focus their sustainability agendas and better implement circular BMs. This perspective is consistent with the current fashion context, where digital transformation is recognized as an asset that could transform the industry into a more sustainable business. This proposed objective is realized through an iterative process of modeling data. The BMIs identified here are grouped according to Bocken’s eight archetypes: maximize material and energy efficiency; create value from ‘waste’; substitute with renewables and natural processes; deliver functionality rather than ownership; adopt a stewardship role; encourage sufficiency; re-purpose the business for society/the environment and develop scale-up solutions. They guide the authors in modeling mechanisms and solutions that help build business innovations that work to ensure circularity. Analyzing the current best practices, this article introduces a taxonomy that highlights current approaches that lead to incremental changes toward CE through digital solutions.

Fashion industry investments drive the choice for textile solutions characterized by radical experimentation and a firm commitment to sustainability. In the last five years, textile innovations have been strongly related to biobased textile solutions evolving to become effectively feasible and strategic. The produced qualitative knowledge implementations consider new production patterns, innovative technical and digital know-how, and new consumption scenarios. The directions the industry is tracing may provide new opportunities for future textile development in the circular biobased economy. This paper presents a map of current European practices. It discusses the possible passage through a holistic paradigm that goes beyond the boundaries of the old productive systems to accompany the sector towards a new sustainable and transversal state. It also presents three selected best practices that return the actual context in which the phenomenon occurs. A model is presented to demonstrate how these circular processes of biobased materials production enable more process innovations which are developed through implementing the process itself: companies’ search for rethinking and implementing the traditional practices or designing new ones (as determined by the doctoral research of one of the authors).

The fashion sector, recognized for its resource-intensive methods, is currently encountering pressing sustainability issues due to its substantial dependence on natural resources, extensive utilization of chemicals, and exploitation of labor within its supply chain, thus giving rise to notable environmental and ethical apprehensions. In the Industry 4.0 era, which emphasizes the integration of new production technologies to enhance working conditions, productivity, and production facility quality, the fashion sector has discovered opportunities to tackle sustainability challenges by adopting technology for transitioning to circular, greener, and digital systems with reduced environmental impact. Despite promising prospects, the opportunities provided by this paradigm are yet to be fully realized. In this context, design is crucial in enhancing digitally driven production processes for fashion companies within this framework. To explore this, the study suggests an iterative approach to recognizing challenges and opportunities, concentrating on the current alignment with technological advancements. A design-focused strategy aims to devise a comprehensive approach to fashion sustainability and circular economy (CE) principles within the Industry 4.0 framework. The aim is to establish an innovative laboratory model that aids fashion companies in effectively managing the sustainable and digital transition. The study offers insights into potential research opportunities to accelerate the Industry 4.0 transformation in the fashion sector. It envisages a more positive, sustainable, and responsible future by establishing a Circular Fashion-Tech Lab, integrating innovative technologies for sustainable and circular practices in the fashion industry.

The proposed article addresses pressing sustainability challenges, advocating for a profound transformation of existing development models, particularly emphasizing sustainable production and lifestyles. Utilizing a research method grounded in a comprehensive international knowledge base, the study explores the evolution of design for sustainability (DfS) approaches. Its significant contribution lies in systematically investigating connections among diverse DfS approaches, providing an initial framework for situating practices within the fashion and furniture industries. The research outcomes obtained iteratively involve mapping design-driven sustainability practices in European fashion and furniture companies. This mapping reveals a transition from a product-centric to an organization-centered design perspective, calling for a holistic ecosystemic framework to revolutionize business operations. The article analyzes contemporary design-driven practices, proposing an interpretative model that identifies ongoing practices fostering incremental changes toward sustainability guided by design. Furthermore, the article outlines a three-stage design-driven sustainability continuum, synthesizing potential future trajectories. Beyond contributing to the understanding of current practices, the research provides insights into future possibilities, highlighting the transformative role of design in reshaping consumeristic systems. Ultimately, the study offers valuable insights into the transformative power of design, paving the way for sustainable business practices in the fashion and furniture industries.

Industrial sectors’ innovative and sustainable development relies not only on solid government, society, academia, and industry but also on how they interact to set and implement strategic goals. In the fashion industry context, the new sociocultural scenario is increasingly driven by pressures from stakeholders to limit the impacts of industrial practices and to move toward new open ecosystems to create and maintain sustainable innovation. This article explores how such innovation can be enabled by design-driven actions in the context of the quadruple helix. Such a model aims to revitalize the areas of technological innovation and gradually advance the construction of the infrastructure needed for sustainable fashion growth, combining and integrating different knowledge. An initial literature review, complemented by case studies analysis, identifies the European fashion industry dynamics of innovation and the roles of industry, government, university, and society. In particular, the government is transforming from a mere controller to a facilitator of innovation synergies. Society relies on citizens revising their consumption habits by shifting toward a performative economy. Industry understands the need for collaboration and adopts new closed-loop supply chains to create and maintain its sustainable development. Universities enable new open system flows to make innovations concerning knowledge, technologies, and systems thrive, from technology transfer to knowledge co-creation. Based on the analysis, we propose a conceptual framework to understand the micro- and macro-dynamics of open innovation with a quadruple helix model to implement sustainability practices in the fashion sector through design-driven actions—reuse, repair, recycle, and refashion—that aim to eliminate the concept of waste to support local ecosystems toward establishing a closed-loop chain.