Title: Using Laudato Si’ and the Fast Fashion Supply Chain to Teach Sustainability
Author(s) : Girish Shambu
This paper describes how Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015) can help bring to life the environmental and social impacts of fast fashion in an operations management course. Key themes from Laudato Si’ are mapped on to activities taking place in all four stages of the fast fashion supply chain—suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers. Because most students are participants in this supply chain, the resulting discussions spark their interest by pulling back the veil on brands with which they are intimately familiar. At the same time, Laudato Si’ delivers a critique of the conventional view of the supply chain by exposing the narrowness of its aims.