In this paper, we consider green product design in a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two retailers, where retailer 1 aims at monetary profit maximisation, and retailer 2 has fairness concern. We consider two kinds of green products: a marginal-intensive green product (MIGP) and a development-intensive green product (DIGP). For the former, the green investment cost depends on the green level and the production quantity; while for the latter, the green investment cost depends on the green level solely. In each case, we investigate the impact of the retailer’s fairness concern by comparing the optimal solutions and supply chain performance with those in the basic models in which all the supply chain members aim at profit maximisation. We find that retailer 2 will set a higher retailing price and earn a smaller market share. Such inferiority increases as retailer 2’s inequity aversion increases or as the substitutability degree of the products offered by the two retailers increases. We also find that retailer 2’s fairness concern will always harm the manufacturer. If an equity outcome is achieved, the supply chain may achieve a better performance; however, if an inequity outcome is attained, the supply chain always performs worse.

Sustainability is crucially important in the textiles and apparel (TA) supply chains. In this paper, we evaluate the impact of clean technology adoption and environmental taxes on the TA supply chains. First, we consider a monopoly case, where a two-echelon supply chain consists of one buyer and one manufacturer. We find that raising the environmental tax rate motivates the manufacturer to invest in green technologies. We then extend our model to examine the duopoly case. We find that in the duopoly case, if the buyer's market share is sufficiently small (large), the optimal greenness level for this buyer's product decreases (increases) in the environmental tax rate; whereas if the two products market shares are relatively equal, the optimal greenness levels for both products buyers increase in the environmental tax rate. The existence of the spillover effect reduces the cost and improves the product greenness. Consumer welfare can be improved if the efficiency of green technology adoption and the coefficient of greenness level on market demand are sufficiently high. This result implies that if the government cares about consumers, the manufacturer should be encouraged to enhance the cost reduction ability in terms of green technology, and consumer education about sustainability consciousness should be enhanced.

Incorporating sustainability into the supply chain is becoming a key priority for many textile and apparel companies. For example, H&M, Patagonia, and The North Face have incorporated various approaches to enhance their levels of sustainable supply chain management. Typical approaches include sustainable product strategy, sustainable investment, sustainable performance evaluation, corporate social responsibility, and environmental management system adoption, which contribute to the development of sustainable supply chain management in the textile and apparel industry. In this paper, we introduce the fifteen articles published in this special issue, and summarize the key findings and future research directions in the area of textile and apparel sustainable supply chain management.

Supply chain finance is a crucial topic. In this paper, we consider that a capital‐constrained manufacturer can borrow money from either a bank (bank credit financing) or a retailer (trade credit financing). Our analysis compares supply chain performance under these two financing schemes. Furthermore, we extend our model to evaluate the impacts of retail competition and supply chain member's risk aversion on supply chains, which consist of one capital‐constrained manufacturer and two competing retailers. We consider three financing schemes: only bank credit financing, dual trade credit financing, and bank and trade credit mix financing. We find that without retail competition, the retailer is always willing to use the trade credit financing; whereas with retail competition, if one retailer provides the trade credit but the other does not, the credit provider could receive the superior profit. Thus, providing an appropriate trade credit financing scheme is critically important for retailers. Moreover, we find that without retail competition, when a trade interest rate is relatively low, both the retailer and manufacturer could reach a win‐win situation in the trade credit financing. However, with retail competition, supply chain members (i.e., two retailers and one manufacturer) will not have an all‐win situation no matter which specific financing scheme is adopted and only a win‐win‐lose situation exists when using the credit mix financing scheme or the dual trade credit financing in supply chains. Last but not least, regardless of risk neutrality or aversion of supply chain members, their pricing decisions among three financing schemes are similar. This implies that the impacts of supply chain members’ risk aversion are limited in supply chain financing scheme selection. More managerial insights are discussed.

L outsourcing with a return policy is quite commonly adopted in the fashion supply chain. Under the return policy, the supplier as a brand owner may focus on production, and then outsource retailing to the retailer. In the meanwhile, the retailer may receive some support money from the supplier for subsidizing the loss of unsold products at the end of the selling season and be asked for shipping back. Motivated by this real practice in the fashion industry, we examine a two-echelon supply chain with one supplier and one retailer under the return policy. Several interesting findings are obtained from our analysis. First, we find that when the supply chain achieves channel coordination, the cost of physical return is at least partially borne by the supplier, no matter who is responsible for it in reality. Second, we find that the cost of physical return is significantly affecting the sustainability factors such as the expected amount leftover (which represents environmental friendliness), the expected sales to expected goods leftover ratio (which implies both environmental friendliness and economic sustainability), and the rate of return on investment (which indicates economic sustainability). Third, from a sustainability perspective, we find that the pure wholesale price contract is more sustainable than the coordinating return policy. A numerical study by the real company data is conducted and managerial insights from analysis are discussed.