Introduction:

The objective of this study is to examine the sustainable development issues prevailing in textile
sectors globally, the importance of sustainable development goals in the textile industry to
elevate poverty and resource utilization, and assess the steps taken by industries to support the
sustainable development goals agenda.

The global Textile sector stands at nearly about $1.90 Trillion having a range of industries
including cotton, Yarn, Fabric, Apparel, and related fashion brands, and employs millions of
people of the World’s total labor force. (Davis, R., 2023). The major issues faced by the Global
Textile Industry are as follows (Cai, Y. and Choi, T., 2023):

 Unavailability of sustainable and renewable resources.

 Poor infrastructure of industry supply chain for innovation.
 Climatic changes due to industrial wastage.
 Health issues created by industrial wastage.
 Health and safety of workers.
 Increase in cost of labor and raw materials.
 Lack of collaboration among key players.
 High usage of Fossil Fuel Energy.

The above-described issues are important for the global textile manufacturing sectors as they
directly affect their main business operations and capital investment decisions. (Staritz, C., et al,
2016).

Sustainability Practices in the Global Textile Sector:

The textile industry taking big steps in improving sustainable practices and adopting ethical
business practices, many big brands and manufacturers of Garments, Apparel, and Fashion
products adopt new technology and innovation in managing their supply chain management and
global ethical sourcing for their materials. The current major sustainability practices are
(Ranasinghe, L. and Jayasooriya, V., 2021):

 Avoid using toxic chemicals to reduce the hazardous health effects of toxic material.
 Using synthetic and recycled sources of raw material for fabrics.
  Implement new plants to reduce global carbon emission and their effect on climatic
change.
 Avoid excessive usage of water resources in dyeing and processing to save freshwater
resources.
 Growing plants and Trees in specific areas to get synthetic fiber instead of cutting trees
and deforestation.
 Using industrial waste and sea waste and recycled plastic to get reverse cashmere, Nylon,
and viscous material from alternative resources (Keinan, A., et al, 2020).
 Using efficient and innovative plants to reduce wastage of natural resources.

The global textile industry faced the biggest challenge of sustainable raw material sourcing, the
environmental effect of their industrial waste and carbon emission, and the health and safety
issues of their workers that they try to address by using innovative production facilities, green
supply chain management and establishing ethical practices for labor dealing.

Relevance of Sustainable Development Goals to the Textile Industry:

Sustainable development is important for the textile sector because of the extensive labor force
affiliation and the biggest sector of almost most of the world’s economies. The textile sector
employs millions of people in the World’s labor force and contributes to more than 30% of the
trade. During recent years, the textile sector has achieved cost reduction due to the global
sourcing of raw materials and lower wage rates in less developed countries. Most of the Textile
Industries moved to Asian countries due to cheap labor available excessively to reduce direct
labor costs but it also creates issues for them in elevating poverty as they are already paying low
wages to labor, their carbon emissions to the environment are relatively higher than other
industries which creates climatic and health problems for nearby areas, another main issue is the
Industrial waste which polluted the freshwater reservoirs because most of the industrial material
is poured into canals without further processing to reduced their hazardous effects (Ranasinghe,
L. and Jayasooriya, V., 2021).

After the arrival of sustainable development goals and ethical business practices, textile industry
business practices and dynamics changed and they shifted their business goals towards achieving
collective sustainable growth that not only earns profits for its shareholders but also contributes
towards protecting Mother Earth’s natural resources and alleviating poverty of the society,
protecting natural environment and fossils fuel energy (Cai, Y. and Choi, T., 2023).

The remarkable steps taken by the Textile Industry for sustainable development are a paradigm
shift in the industry practices and decision making and it highly affects the business and natural
environment. Textile Industry business practices have a direct impact on sustainable growth. The
textile sector sets minimum wage and overtime wage rates for their labor to reduce poverty. They
implement new technology plants that not only use less energy resources but also emit less CO2
and other toxic chemicals. The Textile Sector also makes arrangements to use their industrial
wastage for by-products and processing of hazardous material into less hazardous material. The
Textile Sector also contributes to quality education by providing learning opportunities to its
employees, their children, and the general public through various scholarship programs. The
textile sector also makes proper rules and regulations for a safe and healthy working environment
for their employees to maintain their good health. The textile sector also adopts practices of
equal employment opportunities to reduce the gender inequalities prevailing in the industry. The
remarkable steps of the textile sector account for the life beneath the water, they processed their
hazardous material to reduce water pollution and also used sea waste material to get nylon from
them to reduce water pollution. The textile industry also used renewable energy resources for
their production, they used solar energy to run their machinery, used synthetic fibers instead of
animal leather, recycled industrial and sea waste for cashmere and nylon, and synthetic fibers
from bamboo, banana, and grapes trees waste (Okafor, C.C., et al, 2021)

Stakeholder Mapping and Analysis:

The main key stakeholders of the textile sector are textile companies, raw material suppliers,
competitors, end consumers, Govt. agencies, NGOs and advocacy groups, competitors, Industry
associations, business partners, labor unions, and the general public. Every stakeholder is
affected by the activities and decisions of the textile company and also the company’s operations
are affected by the stakeholder’s interest/influence on the company’s policies. The influence grid
is a grid that divides the stakeholders into four different categories depending upon their power
and interest in the business. The influence grid for the textile sector is below:
 Keep satisfied (high power, low Manage closely (high power and interest)
Interest)  Competitors.
 Investors  Competition
 Social Media platforms.  Markets.
 Marketing activities.  Ongoing projects.
 Activist groups and labor unions.
 Innovation and IT-based projects.
Monitor with minimum effort (low Keep Informed (Low Power & high
power and interest) Interest)
 Govt. agencies.  Investors.
 NGO’s and advocacy groups.  Internal supporting departments
 Suppliers. (cross-department collaboration)
 Frequent customers.
 External supporting business partners
(insurance companies, logistics)

There are different views of different stakeholders regarding sustainability but they are well
elaborated by the theories. The first theory the stakeholder theory is the blend of organizational
management and business ethics. This theory states that there are multiple stakeholders that have
a direct or indirect stake in the business operations and decisions or are influenced by business
decisions. The company should not only focus on shareholders but also contribute to the other
stakeholders like suppliers, society, Govt., creditors, customers, and employees. Every
stakeholder has a direct or indirect stake in the business activities and should be well-addressed
by companies by their ethical business policies. The other theory is the multi-stakeholders
partnership theory which involves the collaboration of different entities for collective growth and
competencies. It involves partnering with competitors, NGOs, and other social media groups for
sustainable development of the sector, the last theory is the Sustainable development goal theory
which totally focuses on sustainable development and ethical business practices. It focuses on
collective efforts to protect natural resources, employee welfare, general public welfare,
education, and health and safety.

Every stakeholder has different expectations regarding sustainability like employees expect
career growth & development opportunities, market-based salaries, learning opportunities,
health, and safety, customers expect fair prices of products with premium quality, less use of
fossil fuels, less emission of hazardous material, etc.

Proposed Sustainable Industrial Partnership Strategy for the Textile Sector:

The textile sector is the biggest sector in terms of the associated labor force and other related
industries and great effort is required for the sustainable development of the textile sector which
cannot be achieved by only a single company or stakeholder. All the stakeholders are required to
contribute to the collective growth that not only sustains growth but also the natural resources.

The proposed sustainable partnership strategy starts with the collaboration of Textile companies
in making arrangements for the education of farmers and harvesters to implement new
innovative ways of cotton production and to increase production and efficiency. Guiding them in
using pesticides and other medicines to protect cotton bales from attacks:

 Guiding and educating farmers in using innovative techniques for cotton production to
increase quality production.
 Educate farmers in using pesticides in the most effective ways to protect soil from
leaches and also protect plants from attacks.
 Make a collective group for sustainable energy sourcing facilities or partnering with
businesses that enable sustainable energy sources.
 Collaborate with research and development institutes to develop effective pesticides for
plant growth.
 Collaborate with research institutes for alternative sustainable ways of product sourcing
like sourcing from bamboo, banana fiber, and grapes waste.
 Implement innovative techniques for textile processing.
 Make arrangements for recycling industrial waste fir the recycling of fibers from waste
by reverse engineering and to get by products from them.
  Educate employees about precautionary measures in utilizing chemicals and running
machinery to avoid any serious damage.
 Provide learning opportunities to employees for career growth and to get technical skills
for innovative textile processing techniques.
 Avoid using forest trees for synthetic fibers, instead grow trees in specific areas to protect
ancient trees and wildlife.

To support sustainable development goals, the UK Govt. and the UK Textile Industry
collectively Took the following steps:

 textiles sector labor is the minimum paid labor across industries and their salaries are
insufficient to feed their families, food, and shelter. UK Govt. set a minimum wage rate
for textile labor, and enforced textile and apparel clothing industries to adopt measures
for peaceful working conditions,
 To comply with the zero-hunger goal, textile companies provide free food to their
employees, their children, and also to the general public as corporate social
responsibility.
 To promote health and safety, UK govt. enforces textile Industries to adopt measures for
a safe and clean working environment for their employees, make precautionary measures
for the physical health of employees working with critical machinery, and also force
companies to use innovative and state-of-the-art technology machinery to reduce carbon
emissions and make arrangements to recycle most of their industrial waste.
 To promote quality education goals, the textile sector educates farmers about innovative
techniques of crop production for cotton and the effective use of fertilizers and pesticides
to increase efficiency and reduce soil depletion. Also, the UK Govt. educates textile
workers about the privileges perks, and benefits that they have as employees of the textile
sector.
 The UK govt also forces textile companies to provide fair wages to women who are
underpaid and work in extreme conditions.
 UK govt. Also enforces textile companies to provide fresh and hygienic drinking
facilities to their workers, avoid using excessive water resources for dyeing and printing,
 and make arrangements for zero discharge of colored water to freshwater reservoirs.
(Thakker A.M., and Sun D., 2023).
 They have developed organic cotton standards and global recycling standards to obtain
cotton from organic and recycled sources (Gabriel, M. and Luque, M.L.D., 2019).
 The UK Govt. forces textile industries to use solar energy as an alternative source of
electricity production to run their industrial machinery. It also forces companies to make
rules and regulations for product sourcing from those companies that have an agenda of
using sustainable energy resources.

Conclusion:

The textile sector is considered the biggest sector of almost all economies because of the number
of people employed and also many other industries affiliated with this sector. The textile sector
contributes to more than 2% of the World’s total production and employs millions of people. The
textile sector utilized natural resources like water for dyeing & printing, human capital for
processing, and fossil fuels for energy production to run heavy machinery. All these activities
cause serious damage to Natural resources and also their emission and Industrial wastage pollute
the environment and life beneath the water. To resolve this issue, sustainable development goals
and initiatives are taken to alleviate poverty, reduce hunger, achieve collective growth, and
protect natural resources. Many countries have taken initiatives by setting minimum wage and
working environment standards for textile labor, setting new plants to reduce carbon emissions,
making arrangements to pour polluted industrial waste directly into fresh water and ocean, and
using renewable resources for cotton and fiber sourcing. The UK Govt. also same steps with an
additional step of setting global standards for organic and recycled cotton sources. All these
initiatives have a good effect on the natural environment and pollution and poverty are reduced
up to some extent by further collaboration is required to achieve sustainable development goals.

Recommendations:

After an extensive analysis of our work, we can provide the following recommendations for the
future:

 Textile companies should collaborate through associations or through NGO to eradicate

poverty.
  A collaborative research institute should be made to make new seeds for cotton
harvesting, to tap into new alternative sources for cotton and fiber instead of existing
ones.
 All companies should use solar energy plants to reduce carbon emission rates worldwide.
 An association should be made to educate farmers and employees of the textile sector to
use new innovative technology to increase efficiency and better resource mobilization.

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