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While the efforts by actors on the buyer-side of value chains – such as brands and retailers – to address upstream labour abuses are well documented, there is a lack of research into how actors on the production-side of value chains – such as raw material producers – can identify and address downstream labour risks. This research presents the findings of an action research project that focused on the Australian cotton industry. By applying a sensemaking lens we propose four properties that can be used to identify labour risk in global value chains, providing insights into the capacity of producers to address downstream labour abuses. We suggest that there is a possibility for a ‘book-end’ approach that combines upstream and downstream actions by buyers and producers in global value chains.

This article categorizes and evaluates how regulatory regimes conceptualize plastics, and how such conceptualizations affect the production, consumption, and disposal of plastics. Taking a doctrinal and policy-oriented approach, it identifies four ‘frames’ – that is, four distinct and coherent sets of meanings attributed to plastics within transnational regulation – namely, plastics as waste to be managed; a material to be prevented; a good (or waste) to be traded freely; and inputs or outputs in production-consumption systems. Based on this analysis, three significant deficiencies in the transnational regulation of plastics are identified: the failure to frame plastics in terms of environmental justice and human rights issues; insufficient focus on plastics prevention (rather than management); and the role of law in reinforcing its production and consumption.

This special issue brings together scholars who have identified justice issues throughout the fashion system, encompassing how fashion is produced, consumed and discarded. While fashion systems have long been the focus of deep and varied perspectives on sustainability, from the environmental to social and cultural, we argue that characterising fashion justice as an environmental justice issue can usefully account for the multiple and intersecting ways in which fashion systems impact both human and more-than-human capabilities (Bick et al. 2018). Against the backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and SDG 12 in particular, which calls for sustainable consumption and production patterns, it is timely and appropriate to consider fashion systems as a broader global environmental justice concern.

This article establishes a new basis for examining the participation, mobilisation and impact of investors at a time when market-based activism for social change is rising in prominence. Existing terminology describing the expression of political values through investment decisions lacks conceptual clarity. Political participation by shareholders and other investors is variously described as shareholder activism or socially responsible investment, and currently conceptualised under the banner of political consumerism. However, this term fails to capture the unique political role and diverse actions of investors. We put forward ‘political investorism’ as a cohering term for investment-based political participation to remedy existing conceptual confusion, to distinguish between investors and consumers as political actors and to set an agenda for the future study of market-based activism. This article defines and develops the concept of political investorism, drawing upon illustrative cases from Australia to identify hallmarks, actors and tactics of this form of political participation.

Within global value chains, multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) have become the chief means to address the environmental sustainability concerns rife throughout fibre, textile and garment production. MSIs include a wide array of non-governmental organisations, voluntary sustainability standards and reporting tools. However, MSIs can be critiqued as an incremental rather than transformative approach to environmental sustainability, firmly embedded within a green-growth paradigm. This article examines the limits and opportunities of MSIs in aiding a systemic transformation for sustainability within the fashion system. By analysing fashion-specific MSIs at two time points, 2017 and 2021, we identify that while MSI membership is growing and a degree of consolidation and harmonisation is occurring, environmental gains are offset by unrelenting growth in production. Drawing upon principles of degrowth, we propose that a scenario in which an MSI construct could have transformative power is one in which overproduction is explicitly addressed.

The fashion label Easton Pearson operated between 1989 and 2016 and was led by cofounders and designers Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson, based in Brisbane, the subtropical capital of Queensland, Australia. The label was known for its highly embellished textiles and bold use of color. The label’s establishment, philosophy, global reach, and particularly the designers’ approach to collaboration with artisans in India and Vietnam are explored in this article. The context of the changing nature of the Australian fashion industry over the 27-year span of Easton Pearson, and the shifts in offshore manufacturing, tariff reduction, and the impacts of the global financial crisis on the local Australian industry are examined. Easton Pearson closed operations in 2016, and in 2017 the full Easton Pearson archive was gifted to the Museum of Brisbane.

A shift to a circular economy is essential, and regulation can play a critical role in this transition. In this paper we examine the regulatory frameworks required to promote a circular economy (CE) for textiles through a qualitative analysis of data from Australian and international contexts. Supporting the transition to a CE requires an optimal policy mix that includes direct regulation, self-regulation, voluntary initiatives, education approaches, and economic instruments, such as subsidies and incentives. Using an inductive, interpretive approach to qualitative analysis, we analysed the submissions and Standing Committee sessions of the Commonwealth Government’s 2019-20 Inquiry into Australia’s Waste Management and Recycling Industries and identified the regulatory approaches for which different stakeholder groups are advocating. Public, industry and recyclers all advocate first for economic instruments, with industry bodies next advocating for self-regulation, while both the public and recycling industry next recommend education initiatives. Alongside, our analysis draws on the regulatory approaches of Australia and other nations, as captured in a sample of international government and NGO reports and working papers. We find that Australia’s current regulatory system focuses primarily on normative education and information documents, with fragmented economic and co-regulation on a state-by-state level. Through this analysis, we propose a holistic policy mix that codifies a circular economy approach to textile waste governance and make a series of regulatory recommendations appropriate to the Australian context.