Background: Sustainability gaining momentum in apparel industry due to increased global regulation and environmental awareness toward green industry. However, many textile manufacturers in India were taking the advantage of soft regulations and lower consumer awareness. Apparel industry is identified to be major contributor to environmental pollution and generating a range of environmental issues throughout supply chain from fibre manufacture till selling. This paper evaluated how TQM adopted companies are managing sustainability on environment - particularly handling apparel and accessory waste being handled - recycled or reused so as the save the environment. Methodology: In this research, the respondents who are taking part in the survey are Quality control management personal, Production managers and General managers of the apparel industries. Survey was done from selected parts of Tamil Nadu (Chennai and Tirupur), India. Both the places are known for garment manufacturing and exports. All the statistical analysis were done using SPSS software version 26.0. Results: Among 134 TQM apparel companies, it has been observed that majority of them (47.9%) had only CPCB type of environmental certificate while 12.7% and 38.7% of them were found to have ISO:14001:15 certificate and other type of environmental certificate respectively. Mean score under the attribute “TQM is finally leading to sustainability" and "TQM and sustainability is converging" are 3.58 (SD=1.395) and 3.30 (SD=1.306) respectively, which indicated that TQM is finally leading to sustainability. Out three bottom line (economic, social and environmental), social is lowest priority as per the survey results followed by environment, however it had improved after TQM adoption. Conclusion: Indian apparel companies adopted environmental Sustainability practices recently; however these companies need major up-gradation in case of sustainability reporting in global platform.
Volume 12 | 03-Special Issue
Pages: 1270-1280
DOI: 10.5373/JARDCS/V12SP3/20201376