Resumo

Through the notoriety of sustainability worldwide, Circular Economy (EC) emerges as a potential strategy for the development of business practices based on environmental concern. As the CE is a strategy for achieving sustainability, companies began to innovate in their business models (BMs), aligning them with the circularity precepts. As a recent theme, research on BMI4CE has increased in recent years, but it still needs to be deepened in industries that are specific and central to the negative environmental impact, such as the fashion industry.

Fashion industry is one of the world's largest industries in terms of turnover, being characterized as a global chain with multiple and numerous agents and its high degree of environmental and social impact resulting from the dominant fast fashion business logic, the characteristics of the production process and from the specificities of the value chain. There are several types of BMI4CE and differ in the way they generate value. This research aimed to identify what are the key elements of companies' BMI4CEs in the fashion industry.

there is a certain consensus in the literature that frames the CE as a drive for sustainability, representing the most advanced and recent manifestation for a paradigm shift towards sustainability (Hofman, 2019). It to propose restorative and regenerative systems (Ghisellini et al., 2016). BMI refers to the development of innovations in the way how companies create and appropriate economic value. BMI4CE can be defined as an economic system that seeks to replace the concept of “end-of-life” product through reduction, reuse and recycling of materials.

Exploratory and descriptive research was performed, by a multiple case study of companies that operate in the value chain of the fashion industry. Were considered the 10 companies that participated in the Future Lab of Copenhagen Fashion Summit 2019, considered emblematic for the industry under analysis and for being companies from different countries. We collected secondary data from the corporate websites and social networks, conducting a thematic/categorical content analysis based on instrument proposed by Lewandowski (2016) and Lüdeke-Freund, Gold and Bocken (2019) to BMI4CEs analysis.

The companies' BMI4CEs were evaluated based on the nine analysis categories. It was identified that the environmental and economic dimensions receive priority attention in the analyzed BMI4CEs. The results support the understanding that the key-elements common to fashion industry companies' BMI4CEs are: closed-loop and reduction of consumerism and materials use. Special focus can also be found in the search for elements such as reuse and new uses of materials and circular supply. Innovation and technology were identified in all cases, highlighting digital technologies (i.e., blockchain).

Different types of BMI guiding the pathway to implementing circularity in the industry, by means of services and products. The results support the idea of a lack of attention to the social dimension by Circular Economy, reinforcing the criticism found in the literature. This research contributed to highlighting new theoretical perspectives under an investigation area still little explored in the literature. It also enables managers in the fashion industry to better understand the functioning of BMI4CEs and the key elements needed for their effectiveness.

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