Abstract
Social audit approaches to sustainable development in the textile industry predominate in worldwide practice. However, research indicates that there are persistent structural non-compliance cases, demonstrating repetitive and harmful patterns and that creating codes of conduct as part of sustainability practices can only marginally improve worker rights on an overall level across industries. Due to these constraints associated with social audits, there's been a rising discourse about moving beyond these audits. In this paper we examine alternative approaches to social auditing to gain understanding, knowledge, collaboration, and empowerment within the value chain of brands, suppliers, and their employees. We target this emerging issue as a challenge for sustainable development of the textile industry. With a qualitative case study of a textile industry value chain as a base, and with the frames of the global sustainable development discourse, and ecosystem thinking, we suggest an alternative digital practice to social auditing in the textile industry, that gives workers a voice to speak with, that empowers the suppliers to take own control and responsibility over social conditions of their employees and that balances the present power takeover of brands. Merging the sustainable development discourse with digital ecosystems thinking when conceptualizing, theorizing or designing information systems (IS), we argue, is a way forward for IS to meet grand societal challenges.
Recommended Citation
Norström, Livia; Islind, Anna S.; Lindman, Juho; and Ganesh, Shiv, "SUSTAINABLE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY" (2023). GlobDev 2023. 14.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/globdev2023/14