KOREASCHOLAR

With the growing importance of ESG as a must-have business strategy, this study attempted to analyze the current state of ESG practices in the Korean fashion businesses. The ESG cases of fashion business were collected from news articles searched on the largest Korean internet portal by November 2021 from October 2020 when the number of articles began to increase meaningfully. Three hundred ninety one ESG cases of 112 fashion manufacturing brands and 332 ESG cases of 49 retail brands were analyzed. Casual and outdoor/sportswear brands among fashion manufacturers were most active in ESG practices, and various online and offline retailers were practicing ESG. Approximately one-third of the fashion brands were positioned as eco-friendly concept. While environmental practices were the most practiced ESG, governance was the least practiced. Among environmental practices, fashion manufacturing businesses were most active in eco-friendly product development, while retail businesses were in eco-friendly campaign-event-service and eco-friendly packaging. The most active social practice was the contribution to communities, followed by retail businesses’ sharing growth with partner businesses. Governance practices were focused on the structure and operation of the board. Various ESG collaborations with various partners were also observed. The research result is meaningful verifying and diagnosing the ESG practices of the Korean fashion businesses.

Abstract
I. Introduction
II. Review of Literature
    1. ESG issues
    2. ESG in the small and medium enterprises
    3. ESG practices of fashion business
III. Research Method
    1. Data collection
    2. Data analysis
IV. Results and Discussion
    1. Characteristics of fashion businesses in the ESG cases
    2.Analyses of ESG practices of fashion businesses
V. Conclusion
References

• Kyungae Park(Professor, Dept. of Clothing & Fashion, Yeungnam University, Korea) | 박경애 Corresponding author
• Soonim Heo(영남대학교 의류패션학과 강사) | 허순임