Resumo

The green agenda is advancing in fashion, emphasizing the need for collaboration between governments, non-governmental organizations and businesses. The aim is to develop and implement strategies focused on means of production that rationally use natural resources. Currently, the environmental and social problems that have arisen from numerous operations within fashion supply chains are widely recognized. In response to the environmental problems caused by the fashion chain, green alternatives emerge, such as new production methods and materials, new design practices and new business models.

Given the context that supports the development of cross-cultural studies , the aim of this article was to carry out a comparative study to verify the representativeness of fashionable environmental initiatives, based on information reported by companies in their sustainability reports. It is appropriate to compare Brazil and Sweden because Sweden has a modern, contemporary fashion market, in line with the advances of society and increasingly focused on the environmental, in addition to having the reputation of being a leading country in sustainability in several other industries.

In the fashion industry, sustainability has become a keyword. Industry uses terms such as “sustainable fashion”, “green material” and “responsible business” routinely in marketing materials and annual reports of leading fashion brands and retailers. The environmental dimension of sustainability in fashion aim to minimize any undesirable effects during the product's life cycle, ensuring the efficient and careful use of natural resources (water, energy, land, soil, animals, plants, biodiversity, ecosystems etc.); renewable energy sources (wind, solar, etc.) at all stages.

From the objective of the study, the results evidenced practices in all companies of the propositions of the environmental dimension of sustainability in fashion. Regarding greenhouse gas emissions, the Swedish averages really are superior in the comparative analysis. The proposition on the treatment of residues, tailings and effluent treatment already shows a smaller distance between companies in both countries. Moreover, the dimension on reducing water and energy consumption indicates very similar averages.

At first, we thought that Swedish companies would obtain averages much higher than those obtained by Brazilian companies due to the impact of the difference between the development of countries and the greater awareness of Swedish society about the relevance of environmental sustainability. However, the data did not support this expectation. Swedish companies are more engaged than Brazilian companies in the dimension that addresses greenhouse gas emissions, followed by less significant differences in the dimension on the treatment of waste, tailings and effluent treatment.

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