Analyzing the attractiveness of Businesses to receive Investments for a creative and innovative transition to a circular economy: the case of the textile and fashion industry

Excessive and often compulsive consumption has given the textile–fashion industry the reputation of being one of the industries causing the most pollution in today’s world. For this reason, there is a necessity for a transition from a linear to a circular approach in the textile–fashion industry. However, this is not an easy task, especially when considering the investments that must be made to put a circular economy structure into practice. In this sense, the transition to a circular economy in the textile–fashion industry presents a unique opportunity for businesses to attract investments to support this transition by leveraging creativity and innovation to reduce waste, minimize resource consumption, and increase the longevity of products and materials. Therefore, this study sets out to develop a multicriteria decision support model to measure the attractiveness of businesses to receive investments that aim at aiding the transition to the circular economy. The model uses the “play card” from Simos’ procedure and the Normalize software that provide a comprehensive, consistent, and transparent approach to decision making, which can help investors to evaluate the attractiveness of investment opportunities and identify businesses that have the potential for long-term success in the circular economy. Hence, catalyzing and obstructing factors of the circular economy discussed in the literature were selected to underpin the analysis model and to draw up robust investment recommendations to the investors. In addition to the scientific contributions of the model, indications are also provided to the private sector, public policy makers, and society on how sustainability can be driven by the circular economy.