An Integrated Strategic Framework for Sustainability Innovation in the Textile Industry: Linking Resources, Policy and the SDGs

This letter addresses the need to better align sustainability innovations with critical enabling resources—namely technology, workforce capabilities, and regulatory mechanisms—under a unified global vision for sustainable development. An integrated strategic framework, grounded in research literature, real-life cases and the sustainable development goals (SDGs) is developed outlining the interconnectivity across human-techno-policy resources for supporting product, process, and organizational innovations in the textile industry. We contend that greater awareness and understanding on how the design and use of different critical resources in more sustainable ways can foster both the industry’s SDG contributions and its economic viability. Several recommendations are provided on how sustainability principles can be embodied in the use of critical resources that will lead to more inclusive product innovation, agile process innovations and robust organisational systems.