Integrated supply chain models in Italy. Cases study of circular economy
in the Italian textile and fashion field.
Authors: Maria Disperati Filippo , Antonia Salomè Maria 
Published: July 2023

The contribution aims to investigate integrated supply chain models in
Italy. Through the analysis of some case studies, it aims to provide an
initial mapping of territories where the involvement of communities in the
production chains of local companies has generated sustainable circular
supply chain models. In addition to the need to take action on carbon
emissions (Coccia, 2022), there is a clear need to focus attention on a
local dimension of textile and fashion production, capable of conceiving its
own doing as part of a totality in which all the living beings that belong
to a specific territorial ecosystem move, understood as a set of relations
between an environmental system and a human society, which, organised also
with evolved urban structures, find in that environmental system most of the
fundamental resources for life, developing culturally and producing a system
of relations, symbols, knowledge. The concept of the territorial ecosystem
becomes fundamental for practicing the concept of sustainability of human
settlements (Saragosa, 2001). By shifting the focus to the creation of a
virtuous system capable of including and revitalizing local realities
(Vaccari, 2021) by building a new system (Fletcher, 2013), new value can be
generated and overcome not only the climate crisis but also the cultural
crisis in which contemporary society finds itself. The research aims to
build the foundations for starting a mapping exercise of those Italian
territories, with a focus on central regions such as Tuscany and Marche,
where a strategic scenario emerges made up of entrepreneurial realities in
which the chain of processes and operations is collectively distributed
among the various players. Starting with the raw material and ending with
the finished product, the territorial manufacturing assets are distributed
among the various actors who manage the various stages of the chain
independently.Among these, a virtuous example is Re.Verso, a collaborative
circular economy programme in Tuscany, focused on the reuse, recycling, and
reduction of textile waste through the construction of a participative
community. The programme aims to build an integrated, transparent,
traceable, and certified supply chain divided into three phases: sourcing
and selection of post-consumer materials, mechanical transformation of these
raw materials, and development of a new product through the production of
yarn, fabric, and finished accessories. The research aims to investigate a
model of innovative practices, which are expressed in participative design
dynamics, relations with the territory, new narratives, and synergies
between people and communities (Franzo, 2020). To investigate these
realities, located in a varied geographical context, which have chosen to
work together, to make and create a new system, aimed at the survival and
recovery of their economy, to bring the places back to life by preserving
skills and knowledge. It is a pervasive revolution that is changing the
whole of society, not just industry, so much so that people started talking
first about enterprise 4.0 and then about supply chain 4.0 up to ecosystem
4.0 (Idevaia, Resce, 2019).