Introduction: Sustainability (or Lack Thereof ) in the Fashion Industry

This special issue has chosen to zoom in on new business models as one component in promoting a more sustainable fashion industry. The business model concept has recently come to the fore as a new, popular metaphor for explaining how companies create, deliver and capture value (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010). Historically, the literature that bridges business model and sustainability thinking has been relatively scarce (Stubbs and Cocklin, 2008; Schaltegger et al. 2011). However, recently a number of publications and special issues have explored the intersections between sustainability and business model thinking (see e.g. Bocken et al., 2014; Michelini and Fiorentino, 2012; Yunus et al., 2010). This special issue makes a contribution to this literature by exploring how sustainability can be a driver for exploring new business models within a single industrial setting.