Requirements of implementing a circular leasing & rental model on technical garments : Challenges and opportunities in the Swedish outdoor industry

• Main Author: Oscarson, Frida
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper 2020
• Subjects: Sustainable Development; Product-service-system; Business models; Circular Economy; Leasing and rental; Technical garments; Natural Sciences; Naturvetenskap; Earth and Related Environmental Sciences; Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-417894

The Fashion industry has grown rapidly over the past decade. The industry is one of the world’s most polluting industries and the way we produce and consume clothes has to change, to reach sustainability across the industry. The fashion industry requires a new “textile economy” where business models are developed to keep products in use and continuously circulate. Therefore, developing business model that can keep products in use and make them circulate is one way forward. Product-Service-Systems (PSS) have become a discussion amongst researchers to be a possible way of reaching more sustainable practices across the industry. This study therefore looks at one form of PSS, leasing and rental. The study will investigate, technical garments because from a durability and quality perspective they are ideal to incorporate in this type of model. Therefore, this study aimed at developing an ideal circular leasing and rental model to see what requirements is needed to keep activity-based, technical garments in use. It was also of interest to investigate what challenges and opportunities the Swedish outdoor industry face when implementing a leasing and rental model, and if they can fulfil the requirements of the ideal circular model. A qualitative method was used through semi-structured interviews to collect the empirical data. The results show that the requirements of an ideal circular leasing and rental model includes Sustainability, Investments/Economic profit, Human resources, Logistics, Product design and Upcycling. The empirical results from the Swedish outdoor industry shows that they require the same factors as the model, however two more requirements are highlighted by the industry, Thirdparty-partner and customer demand. The results also shows that today it is too challenging for the Swedish outdoor industry fulfil the requirements of an ideal circular leasing and rental model. Collaborating with a third-party-partner is one aspect the industry see as an opportunity. The products have an opportunity to be kept in use because the brands will care for them. However, the industry face more challenges than opportunities, some of the challenges are investments and economic profit, logistics and upcycling processes of activity-based technical garments.