## Modeling the Supply Chain Sustainability Imperatives in the Fashion Retail Industry: Implications for Sustainable Development### AbstractThe enduring effects of contemporary global disruptions, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia-Ukraine conflict, Hamas-Israel war, and geopolitical conflicts, have tested the resilience of established business strategies. Consequently, organizations are compelled to integrate sustainable practices into their supply chains to navigate the complexities of the post-COVID-19 era and mitigate the far-reaching consequences of such disruptions. This study pioneers an innovative approach by amalgamating Pareto analysis, Bayes theorem, and the Best-Worst Method to evaluate sustainability imperatives comprehensively. Focusing on emerging economies like Bangladesh and its fashion retail industry, this methodology synthesizes insights from literature reviews, expert feedback, and Pareto analysis to curate a definitive set of influential imperatives. Finally, the Bayesian Best-Worst Method is applied to examine them. The results reveal the availability of government support schemes to promote sustainability, developing strategic supply chain interventions to ameliorate the impact of disruptive events, and digitalizing the supply chain as the most monumental imperatives under economic, social, and environmental perspectives, respectively. The study's innovative methodology and its implications for sustainable supply chain management offer valuable insights for both academic research and practical application, presenting a strategic blueprint for the fashion retail industry to navigate and thrive in the post-COVID-19 era. This work can not only advance the theoretical understanding of supply chain sustainability but also provide actionable guidance for industry leaders in developing robust, resilient, and sustainable supply chain strategies.### Keywords:Supply Chain Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Pareto Analysis, Bayesian Best-Worst Method, Fashion Retail Industry## 1. IntroductionThe global supply chain (SC) has encountered several phases of chronic disruptions, starting from the COVID-19 pandemic to the recent Russia-Ukraine war and war in Middle-eastern Asia, resulting in intermittence or halt in the production process and interrupted raw material supply [1, 2]. Wars have always brought adverse effects on the SC, fueled by production disruption, transportation outages, and supply disruptions [3]. Major fashion brands, e.g., Zara, Nike, and H&M, withdrew their operation from Russia in March 2022, which caused worry to fashion clothing manufacturers in Asia, including Bangladesh and Vietnam, where Asian nations will lose close to $1–2 billion or more in export profits [4]. The rising costs of crude oil and fuel have caused detrimental effects on the fashion SC as labor costs have increased due to inflationary pressures. The Russia-Ukraine war and the precedent of COVID-19 are leading to a global slowdown in the fashion industry [5]. The emergent energy crisis disrupted the fashion or clothing SC as 58% of executives think that the fashion market will weaken due to re-routing of trade, delay in delivery to European markets, use of sea instead of water, increase in freight expenses caused by sanctions on using seaports, and overall rising of cotton and cashmere prices by 30% to 45% [6].From Bangladesh’s perspective, the war is feared to reduce the export-import business with Russia. In the fiscal year 2020–2021, Bangladesh exported goods worth USD 665.3 million to Russia, of which clothes were the most [7]. The disruption in the SC is expected to impact the Bangladeshi manufacturers due to the collapse in the SC resulting from heightened oil, gasoline, and ship fare costs. Because of the global value chain’s interconnected nature, disruption in one country has far-reaching effects on the overall international SC. More than 190,000 US and 109,000 European companies have tier-three Russian or Ukrainian suppliers [8]. Due to the sanctions, there have been widespread adverse effects on the SC operations of these suppliers. For example, the supply chains of electronics retailers have seen prices rise due to the reduced availability of rare earth metals from Russia and Ukraine. Supply chains of car retailers have also been impacted due to a reduction in the availability of palladium, which is used to produce vehicles’ catalytic converters [9]. The soaring cost and reduced energy availability have mostly affected energy-based supply chains [10]. These non-munificent, i.e., unfavorable environmental contingencies, require an enhanced emphasis by academicians and SC policymakers to ensure sustainability in the face of rampant SC disruptions [10]. In this respect, maintaining sustainability by accommodating a triple bottom line, e.g., social, economic, and environmental sustainability, can help firms maintain resilience and long-term viability [11]. Though several studies have been formulated in recent years considering the emergence of COVID-19, the imperatives leading to sustainability in the fashion retail SC have received very little attention. Primarily due to the new global paradigm shift resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war and recent SC adversities, it is time to focus on the imperatives contributing to sustainability, especially in the fashion retail industry.In literature, sustainability issues have been primarily dealt with within the contexts of developed economies. However, there is limited understanding regarding how the fashion industry in an emerging economy can navigate SC disruptions and ensure sustainability in day-to-day operations. Considering this research gap, the current study intends to explore the imperatives leading to sustainability in the fashion retail SC. Bangladesh is an attractive emerging economy where the readymade fashion retail industry is the prime export-earning sector. Bangladesh has secured a dominant position in the international fashion apparel chain due to the competitive advantages of low-cost labor. This sector’s contributions span various aspects, including economic growth, poverty alleviation, women empowerment, job opportunities, and many more. In the fiscal year 2022–2023, the clothing industry accounted for 84.58% of Bangladesh’s total export revenue, equivalent to approximately 46.99 billion USD [12].Despite its significant role in the nation’s progress, Bangladesh’s fashion retail industry has faced numerous challenges since the early 1980s [13]. These challenges include the collapse of production facilities, political turmoil, and significant fire incidents. Notably, the tragic fire incident at Rana Plaza in 2014 highlighted the urgent need to ensure safe working conditions within the global retail sector [13, 14]. In response, two regulatory bodies, Accord and Alliance, were established to provide sustainable production practices [15]. While this sector has demonstrated impressive performance in recent years, it has encountered substantial disruptions in its SC. The Russian-Ukraine war has negatively impacted the import of raw materials for cloth manufacturing, increasing production costs. The fall of the Bangladeshi currency against the US dollar has also negatively affected the fashion industry. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in foreign buyers canceling orders worth nearly US$ 2.9 billion, involving more than 900 million units of Bangladeshi garment products. This, in turn, led to the distress of approximately 2.27 million workers [16].According to a Regulation of International Supply Chains (RISC) report, the pandemic introduced key challenges to Bangladesh’s fashion retail industry. These challenges included order cancellations, delayed acquisition of raw materials due to heavy reliance on China, and financial crises faced by suppliers [17]. In the meantime, other countries, including China, Vietnam, and India, have caught up with the low-cost value propositions. They are increasingly challenging the Bangladeshi fashion retail industry through their low-cost production capability. In this vein, considering these adversities, Bangladesh must seek alternative ways of maintaining competitive advantages through augmenting sustainable supply chain (SSC) management practices [18]. Combining these challenges to supply chain sustainability (SCS) and the significant repercussions of recent disruptions has prompted a systematic approach to identify, prioritize, and assess the factors influencing SCS.Concerning the significance of sustainability, several studies have been conducted in recent years on sustainability drivers [19, 20]. The social aspects of SSC management in the apparel industry have been investigated by Kök sal et al. [21] and İs lam et al. [22], who provided a literature review on environmentally friendly operational practices in textile manufacturing. Paul et al. [23] explored the sustainability recovery challenges of the garment SC in the context of COVID-19 using the grey-DEMATEL approach. Reshad et al. [24] prioritized the challenges and strategies regarding the risks of managing a sustainable SC by combining the TOPSIS and VIKOR approaches. Chowdhury and Quaddus [25] investigated the interaction effect between sustainability and governance in predicting firm performance through the PLS-SEM approach.However, there is a lack of research regarding systematic modeling of the triple bottom line of sustainability in the fashion retail industry in a developing country like Bangladesh. Also, the changing scenario in the Russian-Ukraine war period and the emerging new global SC issues have not been considered while exploring the imperatives of sustainability. However, the fashion clothing SC has several vulnerability issues that must be considered. The clothing industry discharges a high volume of waste, one of the most polluting industries in the world [26, 27]. Less than 1% of clothing waste is subject to recycling, and more than 75% is discharged into landfills worldwide [28].Moreover, Pa dzior et al. [29] showed that fashion is the second-highest water-consuming industry. Because Bangladesh is one of the significant fashion cloth exporters globally, the fashion retail industry of Bangladesh needs to embrace the triple bottom line of sustainability. Therefore, considering the above research gap and the urgency of sustainability, the current research sets the below research questions (RQs): \nRQ1: What are the imperatives for improving SCS following the recent SC disruptions?\nRQ2: What is the hierarchical ranking among the identified imperatives of SCS?\nRQ3: How can the imperatives contribute to achieving sustainable industrial practices?\n

The study followed