The Impact of Sustainability Accounting Reporting on Sales Performance in the UK Fast Fashion Industry: The case of H&M

Abstract

This research aims to study the impact of sustainability accounting reporting on sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry. It has the purpose to explore whether sustainability accounting can improve sales performance and how to use it to increase sales. It focuses on how consumer response to sustainability reporting and which elements of sustainability accounting encourage consumers to purchase more thus contributing to sales performance.

This research adopted realism philosophy, deductive approach, case study (H&M) as research strategy, a mixed research (quantitative and qualitative research), and cross-sectional time horizon. It collected secondary data from H&M’s official websites and other reliable sources. Then, it used questionnaires to collect primary data.

This research shows that sustainability accounting reporting positively affect sales performance in the UK. Communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation of a sustainability accounting report positively affect sales performance. H&M should further improve its communication effectiveness of its sustainability reporting. Fashion companies should develop their sustainability accounting based on five dimensions. Further research should improve the generalisation of the research’s findings.

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

1.2 Research Significance

1.3 Research Objectives and Aims

1.4 Research Outline

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 The Concept of Sustainability

2.2 Sustainability Accounting and Sustainability Reporting

2.3 Sustainability in Fashion Industry

2.4 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting

2.4.1 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Management

2.4.2 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Customers

2.4.3 The Impacts of Sustainability Reporting on Financial Performance

2.5 Research Gap

2.6 Conceptual Framework

2.6.1 Communication Effectiveness

2.6.2 Creditability

2.6.3 Transparency

2.6.4 Social Influence Evaluation

2.6.5 Environmental Influence Evaluation

2.7 Research Statement

2.8 Summary

3.0 Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.1 Research Philosophy

3.2 Research Approach

3.6 Sampling Technique

4.1 Qualitative Analysis

4.1.1 Communication Effectiveness

4.1.2 Transparency

4.1.3 Environmental Influence Evaluation and Social Influence Evaluation

4.1.4 Credibility

4.1.5 Sales Performance

4.2 Quantitative Analysis

4.2.1 Demographic Analysis

4.2.2 Frequency analysis

4.2.3 Correlation Analysis

4.2.4 Regression Analysis

4.3 Summary of Findings

5.0 Discussion

6.0 Conclusions

6.1 Summary of Findings

6.2 Recommendation for H&M and all UK fast Fashion Marketers

6.3 Recommendations for Further Research

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

With the rise of environmental awareness, consumers are paying more attention to sustainability management of fast fashion brands when making purchase decisions. A survey conducted in 2018 with 10,000 American respondents showed the following results: 68% of millennials purchased a product which was beneficial to the society or environment in the last 12 months; 87% had a positive image to a brand which has social or environmental contributions; 88% tended to be more loyal to such company, 87% would purchase such company’s products if they had opportunity; and 92% were likely to trust such company (Butler, 2018). This shows that American consumers are rising their environmental awareness. In the UK, consumers’ environment awareness also is growing. British people are spending more in ethical products and services in food, drinks, clothing, energy and travelling industries (Smithers, 2019). Ethical consumption reached more than £41billion in 2018 (Smithers, 2019). This means that ethical product is an important trend. A research covering 5,000 respondents from five European countries including the UK indicates that 38% of consumers viewed fashion brands’ environmental impacts as relevant and 37% regarded fashion brands’ social impacts as very important (Fashion Revolution, 2018). This means that consumers are concerned about fashion brands’ social and environmental impacts. Another internet survey investigating young UK internet users (2,264 respondents), showed that 16-to-24 years-old internet users are growing their environmental awareness (Internet Retailing, 2020). Also, the survey shows that consumers have more willingness to purchase from eco-friendly brands. 41% of UK consumers think about a product’s environmental impacts when they make purchase decisions (Mavrokefalidis, 2020).

Sustainability is an important task for all human beings. It means the development that satisfies the existing needs while not to hurt the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs (Brundtland, 2007). The UN developed Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) including 17 specific and global goals to reserve a better and more sustainable future for all creatures (UN, 2020). The UN requires all parties including government and companies to accomplish these goals. Meanwhile, society, government and the public are expecting higher transparency of sustainability management of companies. Under such context, all companies including fashion companies are involving in sustainability accounting and reporting (reference here). Sustainability accounting is a subcategory of financial accounting that reveals non-financial information related a company’s performance to its stakeholders and impacts on society, environment, and economic performance (Perrini and Tencati, 2006). Sustainability accounting disposes a company’s sustainability performance in economic, ecological, and social aspects (Perrini and Tencati, 2006). Sustainability accounting helps organisations to be more sustainable and improve transparency (Adams and Frost, 2008).

Fashion industry is infamous for high pollution, environmental impacts, and social influences, especially for fast fashion market (reference here). In the process of manufacturing, fashion companies involve large pollution, high wastes, and toxic emissions. For example, the manufacturing of fabrics is highly pollutive and toxic. Chinese textile manufacturers as the suppliers of Zara and Target have been dumping toxic chemicals for making fabrics (Bain, 2018). Fast fashion industry requires intensive labour force in the process of manufacturing, causing serious social issues. Many brands were posed involving in sweatshops, including Nike and Adidas (Clueco, 2018). Also, fashion companies tend to have a complicated supply chain covering a large number of suppliers in developing countries who are likely to involve unethical conducts such as high pollution, high wastes and labour abuse. Even worse, fast fashion items have a high dispose rate, which means that buyers tend to wear a cloth for 2 to 4 times before they dispose it (McFall-Johnsen, 2019). Averagely, consumers purchased 60% more clothes in 2014 than 2000; fashion manufacturing causes over 10% of human carbon emissions; and 85% of all clothes are disposed each year (McFall-Johnsen, 2019).

1.2 Research Significance

This research aims at contributing to the academic debate on the role of sustainability accounting in the fast fashion industry. The relationship between sustainability accounting reporting and sales performance has not been studied yet. However, this relationship is important. If sustainability accounting can positively affect sales, fast fashion players will increase their commitment to sustainability accounting and use sustainability accounting as an effective approach to increase sales performance.

Previous studies found that sustainability practices positively affect financial performance (Alshehhi et al., 2018 and Yu and Zhao, 2015) and organisational performance (Sy, 2016). A very recent research conducted in 2019 demonstrates that sustainability management and reporting of fashion companies are important and they are positively associated with sales performance (Sicoli et al., 2019). Furthermore, many previous studies show the evidences that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) positively affects consumer buying decisions behaviour, sales performance, competitive advantages and organisational performance develop the trust and goodwill of stakeholders, which can provide them with competitive advantages (Aguilera et al. 2007; Money and Schepers 2007). Gray et al. (1995) found that CSR reporting positively affects corporate image and reputation. However, these studies did not consider the impact of sustainability accounting on sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry. They did not consider whether sustainability accounting can improve sales performance. Therefore, this dissertation plans to cover the research gap.

Also, this research makes significant contributions to fashion brand marketers. As discussed, fashion buyers are increasingly concerned about the sustainability management of brands. This means that these brands should demonstrate their transparency of sustainability management and thus attract target customers. Sustainability accounting can be an effective approach for these brands to increase sales performance. The expected results of this research first prove the importance of sustainability accounting in relation to sales performance and show how to use it to increase sales. Thus, this research makes managerial contributions.

1.3 Research Objectives and Aims

This research aims to study the impact of sustainability accounting reporting on sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry. It has the purpose to explore whether sustainability accounting can improve sales performance and how to use it to increase sales. To be specific, this research focuses on how consumer response to sustainability reporting and which elements of sustainability accounting encourage consumers to purchase more thus contributing to sales performance.

This research will develop a literature review about the impact of sustainability accounting on company’s sales performance and analyse the impact by quantitative data from questionnaires and secondary data and discuss the findings from data analysis to generate conclusions and recommendations.

Research questions:

• What is the relationship between sustainability accounting reporting and sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry?

• What should H&M do to improve its sustainability accounting reporting thus increasing sales performance?

• How should UK fast fashion marketers develop their sustainability accounting reporting to improve sales performance?

Research objectives:

· To critically discuss existing knowledge related to sustainability accounting reporting and its impacts,

· To examine the relationship between sustainability accounting reporting and sales performance and identify how to effectively use it to increase sales in the UK fast fashion industry by relying on the case of H&M

· To discuss the findings with the literature review to generate conclusions and recommendations.

1.4 Research Outline

This research clarifies its context, objectives, aim and significance in this chapter and then discusses existing theories and knowledge related with sustainability accounting and its impacts in Chapter Two. Then, this research justifies the choice of research methodologies in Chapter Three. Chapter Four analyses the data and the results are discussed in the Chapter Five. The final chapter makes conclusions and recommendations.

2.0 Literature Review

This chapter critically discusses the literature related with sustainability accounting. It starts with the concepts of sustainability (Triple-Bottom Line, stakeholder theory, and Corporate Social Responsibility) and moves to sustainability accounting as well as sustainability reporting. Then, it discusses sustainability issues, their causes, and ethical consumption in fashion industry. Next, this chapter moves to the impacts of sustainability accounting on management, consumer, and financial performance, respectively. By reviewing previous studies, the chapter therefore can identify research gap. Then, it develops the conceptual framework for this dissertation and illustrates research statement.

2.1 The Concept of Sustainability

Sustainability means that that development of meeting current needs and desires does not compromise the future generation’s capability of meeting their needs and desires (Brundtland, 2007). According to UN (2020), there are 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) that require all parties including governments, organisations and complies to comply with.

Furthermore, there are many theories explained the sustainability or related with it including Triple Bottom Line (TBL) theory and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The TBL is an accounting framework that measures social, environmental and financial performance of an organisation (Innocent, 2014). This accounting framework assesses organisational performance in a wide view to generate more value (Slaper and Hall, 2011). Three pillars of the TBL framework include people, plant, and profit. The pillar of ‘people’ refers to the accounting of social impacts of an organisation. It focuses on labour’s well-being, human rights, and stakeholder’s interests.

The pillar of ‘planet’ measures environmental impacts of an organisation (Innocent, 2014). It stands on the value that the development cannot compromise environmental sustainability. It argues that activities should be beneficial to natural environment as far as possible. Its lowest expectation is that activities do not hurt and minimise their impacts on the environment. The pillar of ‘profit’ measures the economic value generated after removing the cost of inputs, including the cost of the capital employed (Innocent, 2014). ‘Profit’ is viewed as economic benefits which are beneficial for the whole society rather than an organisation. Thus, the term of ‘profit’ in the TBL framework is different with the term of profit in traditional accounting.

The three pillars of TBL framework is consistent with stakeholder theory which argues that a company has responsibilities to all its stakeholders including employees, suppliers, business partners, society, community, government and environment (Miles, 2012).

Also, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is related with sustainability. Carroll (1991) proposes the CSR pyramid highlighting that legal and economic responsibilities are required by society while ethical and philanthropic responsibilities are desired by society. More importantly, the CSR pyramid highlight that a business has to fulfil the bottom responsibilities and then move up to the responsibilities on above. This means that a business has to be profitable and legal, then take ethical responsibilities and finally philanthropic responsibilities.

Figure 1: CSR Primary (Carroll, 1991)

Carroll (1999) illustrates that CSR definitions include four dimensions: legal, economic, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. It is a volunteering self-discipline of a business that targets to take social responsibilities including legal, economic, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities (Carroll, 1999).

To be noticed, Aggarwal (2013) used stakeholder theory in their study of the relationship between sustainability accounting on financial performance Many researches adopted CSR theory and TBL framework to study the link between sustainability accounting on financial performance such as (Burritt et al., 2002 and Gabel and Sinclair-Desgagne).

2.2 Sustainability Accounting and Sustainability Reporting

Sustainability accounting reporting is an interchange term with sustainability reporting in Guo and Yang (2014)’ s study. Alshehhi et al. (2018) study the impact of sustainability practices on corporate financial performance by reviewing previous literature and researches. Their study argues that CSR reporting, non-financial reporting, sustainability reporting and sustainability accounting reporting are interchangeable terms.

Guo and Yang (2014) study on sustainability accounting reporting by survey. The study highlights that there are increasing more American companies involving into sustainability accounting reports. It also highlights the importance of a global standard for sustainability accounting reports, which can improve these reports in terms of comparability, effectiveness, and accuracy. More importantly, this dissertation finds no study arguing the difference between sustainability accounting reporting and sustainability reporting. Moreover, Guo and Yang (2014) used GRI standards in their study.

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) developed the first standard of sustainability reporting in 2000 and then it has been upgrading and improving these standards (Singhal and Dev, 2016). GRI offers the most up-to-data guidance of sustainability reporting. Many scholars used GRI in their study of the relationship between sustainability accounting on financial performance, such as (Aggarwal, 2013).

According to Global Reporting (2020), a sustainability report indicates value and management model of an organisation. Sustainability reporting helps a company to assess, understand and reveal their performance in terms of economy, environment, society, and governance performance. It devises goals, evaluates performance, and helps to make changes. A sustainability report is a core approach to spread sustainability performance and influences and increase transparency. Sustainability reporting is viewed as interchangeable terms with non-financial reporting, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting. More importantly, it is a core element of integrated reporting which covers both financial and non-financial information (Global Reporting, 2020).

Many organisations comply with GRI standards (Singhal and Dev, 2016), including H&M. Singhal and Dev (2016) illustrate that GRI standards. ISO 26000 offers a guideline informing organisation how to operate socially and responsibly. By applying ISO 26000, organisations can transform their social and environmental principles into practice (Singhal and Dev, 2016). More importantly, ISO 26000 is applicable and implicit to all organisations. It clarifies implicit reporting principles, standard disclosures, and implementation manual enabling organisations to develop their sustainability reports. In details, for sustainability reporting, GRI reporting has the following specific frameworks (ASQ, 2020; Global Reporting, 2020; Singhal and Dev, 2016).

• Economic influence (Profit) reveals an organisation’s contributions to local economic development, infrastructure improvements, growth in market share and reduction in energy use.

• Environmental impacts (Planet) indicates an organisation’s environmental management and impacts including land pollution, water consumption, waste management, material consumption, transportation (logistics), pollution of sound and air, and consumption of natural resource and land.

• Social (People) shows an organisation’s social responsibilities including human rights, local communities & suppliers, contribution to local worker development, improvements in communicative capabilities in various communities, increase in capacity of local worker, improvements in industry governance as well as commercial standards.

Apparently, the three frameworks in GRI standards are developed in accordance with the TBL theory (Profit, Planet and People). Also, Singhal and Dev (2016) illustrate the 7 criteria of evaluating a sustainability report’s quality: content, materiality, completeness, stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, accuracy, and comparability. Materiality means the variety of evidences (numerical data, text, and other forms of evidences) demonstrating an organisation’s argument. Completeness whether a sustainability report covers all above guidelines (economic, social, and environmental impacts). Stakeholder inclusiveness means how many stakeholders an organisation considers, such as suppliers throughout its whole supply chain. Sustainability context means the sustainability expectations for an organisation’s context (industry, political and social environment). Accuracy means precision of the information from the report. Comparability means whether readers can compare a sustainability report with previous report. Meanwhile, Guo and Yang (2014) also argue that comparability, effectiveness, and accuracy are important criteria to evaluate the quality of sustainability accounting reporting.

2.3 Sustainability in Fashion Industry

This section discusses the sustainability issues in fashion industry, the causes of these issues, and the rise of ethical consumption.

Sustainability is an important issue in fashion industry especially fast fashion segment. Manufacturing in fashion industry involves intensive labour, huge wastes of water and energy, and high pollution (Kapferer, 2010). Clothing manufacturing is an intensive labour industry and most fashion brands outsource its manufacturing to contractors in developing countries where have low labour costs and loose environmental law enforcement (Kapferer, 2010). Many world-famous fashion brands involved in social and ethical issues because of their outsourcing strategy, such as sweatshop of Nike, Adidas, etc. and high pollution of Zara (Sicoli et al., 2019). Fashion brands in developed countries focus on product design, development, marketing, and distributions and outsource pollutive and low-valued tasks to contractors in developing countries especially in Asia (Khurana and Ricchetti, 2015). As a result, these brands have a complicated and long supply chain which is hard for them to monitor and manage. Meanwhile, price competition in fast fashion industry is intensive and all fast fashion brands are under heavy pressure of cost control. As the result, they pay more attention to cost-control than ethical issues and sustainability issues (Kapferer, 2010).

The suppliers of fashion brand are a major source of sustainability issues in the industry and mainly operate in developing countries. They are likely to involve in high pollution, illegal emission of highly pollutive wastes, large wastes, and human right issues (Jia et al. 2015). They also are inclined to labour abuse, child labour, extremely low payment, and excessive work overtime. However, they take advantage of loose law enforcement to minimise costs and increase their competitiveness against other competitors (Jia et al. 2015). They have low bargaining power to large fashion brands.

Another sustainability issue comes from the very nature of fast fashion industry. The industry is characterised by high disposal rate. It is prevalent that a fast fashion items is disposed after a few times of using (Sicoli et al., 2019). Meanwhile, fast fashion brands constantly release new products in every season. For example, Zara only needs two weeks to transfer a fashion idea to a saleable product in its stores. The high efficiency of the industry pushes high disposal rate, resulting in sustainability issue. Moreover, given that fashion brands have a long supply chain, they also have long distance logistics which also causes serious pollutions and environmental impacts.

However, environmental awareness has been rising in fashion industry. Increasingly more consumers concern environmental impacts of a fashion brand when they make purchase decisions (De Brito et al., 2008). Some consumers are willing to pay more for more ethical products. There is a positive relationship between sustainability performance of a fashion brand and consumer buying decisions (Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir, 2019).

With the rising environment awareness of fashion buyers, fashion firms are changing their business model (Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir, 2019). Consumers are unsatisfied with these firm’s disposal measure of unsold products. For example, a large number of unsold products are burn. Fast fashion industry is customer-oriented that designs and develops products based on customers’ demands (Sicoli et al., 2019). Thus, most fast fashion brands are changing their business model toward more sustainability. Thorisdottir and Johannsdottir (2019) find that fashion firms increase their commitment and engagement in monitoring their suppliers. Fashion companies use digital technologies to monitor market demand, predict demand and then plan manufacturing accordingly so as to prevent over-inventory.

2.4 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting

This section critically discusses impacts of sustainability accounting on management, consumer, and financial performance, respectively. It reviews previous studies to identify how sustainability accounting contributes to management and financial performance and increases financial performance.

2.4.1 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Management

Many scholars find that sustainability accounting report has positive impact on management (Burritt et al., 2002; Gabel and Sinclair-Desgagne, 1993; and Guo and Yang, 2014). Gabel and Sinclair-Desgagne (1993) found that sustainability accounting report started to be used by management in 1990s. A more recent research reveals that management recognises the importance and benefits of using sustainability accounting to make decisions and using it as an instrument helping to address different decisions (Guo and Yang, 2014). With sustainability accounting, managers can determine make decisions while consider all stakeholders. Also, all levels of manager can use sustainability accounting to make decisions. Furthermore, Burritt et al. (2002) argue that there is a relationship between decision-making and sustainability accounting. Firstly, sustainability accounting raises managers’ sustainability awareness for decision-making. Secondly, sustainability accounting provides data and information helping decision-making.

Moreover, sustainability accounting is an effective tool helping managers to assess their environmental performance (Hahn, 2013 and Hubbard, 2009). Hahn (2013) argues that sustainability accounting assists companies to form sustainability strategies and thus improve their sustainability management. ISO 26000 provides a specific, applicable, and effective guideline helping companies to increase their operation efficiency. Hahn (2013) explain how ISO 26000 contributes to strategic planning processes including environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy assessment. To begin with environmental scanning, ISO 26000 helps companies to understand expectations on CSR of internal environment (employees, shareholders, etc.) and external environment (suppliers, customers community and government). Then, the standard offers managers a summary of these expectations, enabling them to develop a vision and mission accordingly and be aware of their social and environmental impacts in the process of developing strategy. During the process of applying strategy, ISO 26000 can offer the latest solutions and suggestions on how to improve sustainability, because the GRI improves the standard frequently. In the process strategy assessment, the standard offers managers an effective and credible method to evaluate their sustainability management performance and thus understand the effectiveness of their strategy. Generally, ISO 26000 helps managers to have understanding the internal and external environment, offers them information for strategic formation, provide criterion to evaluate their sustainability practices, and find solutions for improvements (Hahn, 2013). More importantly, ISO 26000 offers guidance, ideas, and knowledge assisting companies to incorporate sustainability into their strategy (Hahn, 2013). Meanwhile, Hubbard (2019) also agrees that ISO 26000 lectures companies how to practice sustainability theories such as Triple Bottom Line (TBL) and to measure their sustainability performance in a way which is effective and credible to external stakeholders. This means that ISO 26000 provides helps allowing these companies to practice their sustainability strategy. The standard is a workable tool that transforms sustainability theory into practice.

Furthermore, many researches argue that GRI or ISO standards assist organisations to realise sustainability (Bundy et al., 2013; Köppl and Neureiter, 2004; and Lozano, 2015; and Oncioiu et al., 2020). Köppl and Neureiter (2004) argue that sustainability reporting is an effective tool assisting companies to identify and understand their strengths and shortages in terms of sustainability performance. This means that sustainability reporting can be used by management to improve effectiveness and performance. For those companies whose leaders considers sustainability reporting as an essential part of annual report, they can effectively their sustainability performance and form their own measures of their sustainability (Bundy et al., 2013 and Lozano, 2015). By sustainability reporting, companies can collect meaningful information and effectively evaluate its social and environment influences so as to enhance their efficiency, natural resource management, which are concerned by internal and external stakeholders (Perrini and Tencati, 2006). Oncioiu et al. (2020) also find that sustainability reporting facilitates effectiveness and generates value by helping to develop and practice corporate sustainability standards.

2.4.2 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Customers

Sustainability reporting effectively improve organisations’ public relations (Köppl and Neureiter, 2004). It allows companies to increase their reputations, transparency, and credibility in a business environment in which consumers are increasing more concerned about sustainability and ethical conducts of companies (Oncioiu et al., 2020). Both scholars and managers highlight that sustainability reporting is conductive to a company’s reputation, revenue, and profits (Morioka and de Carvalho, 2016). Chen et al. (2015) highlight that sustainability reporting increases information symmetry and facilitate stakeholder engagement and relationships thus improving credibility and accountability of annual reporting. This means that sustainability reporting cultivates a company’s relationship with its stakeholders, makes them more engaged and convinces them trust its disclosure.

Many scholars find that consumers are paying more attention to sustainability performance of a company (Sy, 2016). Sustainability acts a prominent role in consumer purchase decision process (Yu and Zhao, 2015). With rise of environmental issues, consumers are growing their environmental awareness and more engaged in ethical consumption. Ethical consumption means that consumers purchase those goods manufactured in an ethical manner (Gazzola et al., 2020). Some consumers are willing to spend more in those ethical products and services. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices have strong and positive impacts on consumer buying decisions (Parung, 2019). This means that consumers are more inclined to those companies with good CSR practices. However, Parung (2019) also argues that CSP practices cannot affect all consumers of UK high-street brands. Parung (2019) found that the CSR does influence consumer’s purchase behaviour, even though it doesn’t influence all people in the UK high-street retailing market.

2.4.3 The Impacts of Sustainability Reporting on Financial Performance

Many researches find a positive link between sustainability reporting and financial performance (Ngwakwe, 2009; Greenwald, 2010; and Sam and Robeco, 2011). Ngwakwe (2009) finds that the improvements in sustainability performance (employee health & safety, waste management, and community development) positively affect return on asset. Greenwald (2010) uses ESG Performance Score which measure environmental, social and governance performance of an organisation proving a link between sustainability reporting and financial performance. Guidndry and Patten (2010) use GRI as sustainability performance indicators. They find that higher quality sustainability report leads to more positive market response. Schadewitz and Niskala (2010) also use GRI and finds a positive role of sustainability reporting in facilitating information symmetry between managers and other stakeholders. SAM and Robeco (2011) focus on stock returns in their study of the link between sustainability reporting and financial performance.

2.5 Research Gap

Based on discussion of previous studies, this dissertation has a research gap. Many studies investigate the relationship between sustainability reporting and financial performance (Ngwakwe, 2009; Greenwald, 2010; and Sam and Robeco, 2011). They focus on the impact of sustainability reporting on management side, whereas have no consideration of how consumers response to sustainability reporting. Only Guidndry and Patten (2010) considered market response, whereas they did not consider sales performance. This dissertation finds no research investigating sustainability accounting on sales performance. Guo and Yang (2014) studied sustainability accounting reporting and collected quantitative data from 30 American Dow-Jones companies by surveys. Their study also focused on these companies rather consumer side. They did not consider the link of sustainability accounting report and sales performance.

2.6 Conceptual Framework

Oncioiu et al. (2020) highlight that sustainability reporting contributes to financial performance. Their study proposes a theoretical framework describing the relationship between sustainability reporting and financial performance. The study proposes the following independent variables including business reputation, CSR behaviour, CSR communication tools, financial transparency, and social impact evaluation. Based on this study and previous studies, this research developed its own conceptual framework (Figure 2).

2.6.1 Communication Effectiveness

Oncioiu et al. (2020) considers how effectively a company uses communication tools to spread its sustainability reporting. Oncioiu et al. (2020) show that communication effectiveness of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. Meanwhile Bundy et al. (2013) argue that an important factor is communication tools contributed to spread of sustainability reporting and making more audiences read it. This means that effective communication makes more stakeholders read the sustainability reporting. This research has the assumption: communication effectiveness facilitates the spread of sustainability reporting; more people read the report and more people believe it; and they may purchase more. Thus, the research assumes that communication effectiveness is a mediating factor affecting the impact of sustainability reporting on sale performance.

2.6.2 Creditability

In this research, credibility means how much a sustainability reporting can convince stakeholders. Using CSR reporting standards such as ISO is relevant to financial performance (Oncioiu et al., 2020). Furthermore, many previous studies highlight that GRI improves the credibility of a sustainability reporting (Chen et al., 2015; and Oncioiu et al., 2020). Oncioiu et al. (2020) show that credibility of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. This means that using ISO standards is a way to improve credibility. Also, credibility is certainly related with quality of a report. When a report has low quality, it certainly has lower capability to convince readers. This research assumes that the increased credibility makes consumers more believe in a company’s sustainability credibility discourse and thus purchase more.

2.6.3 Transparency

Previous studies highlight that consumers especially ethical consumers pay more attention to transparency of a business (Joy et al., 2012). Meanwhile, Oncioiu et al. (2020) illustrate that transparency of a sustainability report is related with the audit committee. Chen et al (2015) also agree that the audit committee affects transparency of a sustainability report and financial performance. Oncioiu et al. (2020) show that transparency of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. This research assumes that transparency of sustainability report affects sales performance.

2.6.4 Social Influence Evaluation

The importance of environmental influence is supported by TBL, CSR theory and stakeholder theory. Oncioiu et al. (2020) show that social impact assessment of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. Furthermore, many previous studies find that fashion consumers pay heavy attention to social impacts of a company (Gazzola et al., 2020; Joy et al., 2012). They consider those businesses with negative social impacts as unethical business and prefer to purchase from ethical businesses (Gazzola et al., 2020). Meanwhile, Oncioiu et al. (2020) find that social influence evaluation in GRI has a positive relationship with financial performance. Those companies whose sustainability reports indicate good social influence evaluation have a higher financial performance. Buchan (2012) also highlights that social factors of GRI has a positive relationship with financial performance. Thus, this research assumes that social influence evaluation in sustainability report has impacts on sales performance.

2.6.5 Environmental Influence Evaluation

Similar with social influence evaluation, environmental influence evaluation also should be studied. Oncioiu et al. (2020) show that environmental influence evaluation of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. Many studies indicate that consumers pay attention to environmental impact of a company (Gazzola et al., 2020) and there is a positive relationship between environmental impact of a company and consumer buying decisions (Joy et al., 2012). Furthermore, Oncioiu et al. (2020) find that environmental influence of sustainability reporting positively affects financial performance. Also, Wood (1991) also argues that environmental performance in reporting is important. Thus, this research assumes that environmental influence evaluation in sustainability report has impacts on sales performance. More importantly, the importance of environmental influence is supported by TBL, CSR theory and stakeholder theory.

Based on above discussion, this research devises the following independent variables: communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, social influence evaluation, environmental influence evaluation (Figure 2). The dependent variable is sales performance.

Figure 2: Conceptual Framework

2.7 Research Statement

Many studies find a positive impact of sustainability accounting report on management (Burritt et al., 2002; Gabel and Sinclair-Desgagne, 1993; and Guo and Yang, 2014). However, this research assumes that the improved management supported by sustainability accounting report can affect customers stimulating their consumption thus increasing sales performance. Fast fashion industry is customer-oriented that designs and develops products based on customers’ demands (Sicoli et al., 2019). Also, with the rise of ethical consumption in the industry, the managers of fast fashion industry pay more attention to sustainability. By sustainability accounting report, they improve their sustainability management which fits customer expectations. Thus, this research makes the assumption that the sustainability accounting report improve sustainability management, then affects consumers, and ultimately increases sales.

This research finds no previous study clarifying the relationship between sustainability reporting and sales performance and most relevant study neglecting consumers’ response to sustainability reporting. Thus, this research determines to focus on how consumer response to sustainability reporting and which elements of sustainability accounting encourage consumers to purchase more thus contributing to sales performance.

2.8 Summary

This chapter critically discusses sustainability reporting and accounting and finds they are two interchangeable terms. Sustainability is an important issue in fashion industry especially fast fashion segment where involves serious social and environmental problems. Fast fashion’s suppliers and the nature of fast fashion business contribute to these sustainability problems. With the rising environment awareness of fashion buyers, fashion firms are changing their business model. The chapter finds that sustainability accounting has impacts on management, consumer, and financial performance, respectively. It also uncovers a research gap - no research investigating sustainability accounting on sales performance. Thus, this chapter develops its conceptual framework consisting of communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, social influence evaluation as well as environmental influence evaluation.

3.0 Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

This dissertation developed its research methodologies based on the research onion proposed by (Saunders et al., 2009). As figure 3 shows, the research onion clarifies research methodologies include philosophy, approaches, approach, strategy, choices, time horizon, and technique.

In accordance with the research onion, this dissertation adopted realism philosophy, deductive approach, case study (H&M) as research strategy, a mixed research (quantitative and qualitative research), and cross-sectional time horizon. It collected secondary data from H&M’s official websites and other reliable sources. Then, it used questionnaires to collect primary data.

Figure 3: Research Onion

3.1 Research Philosophy

Realism philosophy is suitable for this dissertation because it supports both quantitative and qualitative research. The philosophy makes researchers study an observable phenomenon based on the assumption that reality is independent from people’s mind (Cohen et al., 2007). By using this philosophy, this research can study the impact of sustainability accounting on sales performance in a scientific way.

Two sub-types of realism: direct realism and critical realism support quantitative and qualitative research, respectively (Collis and Hussey, 2003). Direct realism stands on the assumption that human senses can describe the world. This means that direct realism focuses on human senses such as feelings, emotion, and perception, which therefore supports qualitative research. However, critical realism argues that senses cannot describe the real world. Instead, it focuses on an objective way to describe the real world, such as numerical data, which supports quantitative approach. By both quantitative and qualitative approach, this dissertation can both describe the research phenomenon in a more comprehensive and reliable way.

Realism philosophy is at the middle of positivism philosophy and interpretivism philosophy. It does not have positivism’ strict research framework that hinders researchers to explore variables. Meanwhile, it does not have interpretivism’s loose framework which makes researchers easily involve in biases. Instead, realism philosophy supports both quantitative and qualitative approach. More importantly, it relieves positivism’s weakness of inefficiency in studying behaviour. Also, it overcomes that problem that interpretivism’s results are arguable and controversial. Therefore, realism philosophy was applied by this dissertation.

3.2 Research Approach

Deductive approach was used by this research because it was more suitable than inductive approach. It allowed the researcher to study the impact of sustainability accounting in the UK fast fashion industry on the basis of existing knowledge and theories. To be specific, this research developed the conceptual framework (Chapter 2, 2.6) based on previous studies. The conceptual framework considered following theories: CSR, stakeholder theory and TBL framework.

Also, this research complied with the processes of deductive approach. It designed research question, developed literature review, designed research methodologies, conducted observation, discussed findings with the literature review, and made conclusions and recommendations.

This research adopted the approach also because its advantages. Deductive approach can ensure the validity of research results as long as it uses reliable data and data analysis techniques (Collis and Hussey, 2003). However, even with good data and data analysis, inductive approach may still generate unreliable results. Inductive approach focuses on exploration of new knowledge and insights for new theories (Collis and Hussey, 2003). Nevertheless, there are many reliable theories (CSR, stakeholder theory and TBL framework) and previous studies, which are related with this dissertation. Thence, this dissertation did not plan to find any new insights for new theories. Furthermore, it had clearly research question before observation. However, inductive approach started with observation and then figured out research question. Therefore, deductive approach was used rather than inductive approach.

3.3 Case Study

The use of case study was a wise choice for this dissertation. Case study supports both quantitative and qualitative research at the same time. More importantly, it can analyse a variety of data including qualitative data: documents, news, industry paper and quantitative data: numerical data. Case study allows researchers to effectively study those research phenomena which have an ambiguous line with their context (Collis and Hussey, 2003). It means that case study considers context behind a research phenomenon. This is important in social research and business research. To study this dissertation’s topic, it is significant to consider the context of the UK fast fashion industry, UK consumers, etc.

Hence, this dissertation employed the case study focusing on H&M. H&M is a world-known fast fashion brand and retailer which has large scale of operation and huge customer base in the UK. More importantly, H&M has clear sustainability reporting and integrated financial reporting which are available on the internet. Thus, choosing H&M to conduct the case study is suitable.

On the other hand, other research strategies including survey, experiment and focused group were not applicable. Survey is more consistent with positivism and effective to collect quantitative data (Collis and Hussey, 2003). Also, the dissertation was unable to collect primary data by survey from H&M’s accounting managers, accountants, and so on. Thus, survey was not applicable. Experiment and focused group are hard to manage. They design a research environment that involves all relevant variables but barely consider context. Nevertheless, this research had to consider the context to study the impact of sustainability reporting on sales performance. It was hard for this research to cover all contextual factors in an experiment. By contrast, it was more effective and efficient for the research to use case study. Through case study, the research can directly study the research phenomenon in its context.

3.4 Mixed Research

Based on realism philosophy, this research adopts a mixed research. For its qualitative part, the research collected data from multiple sources and focused on H&M’s official reports from its website. The qualitative part used secondary data to evaluate H&M’s reports in terms of communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, social influence evaluation and environmental influence evaluation in the conceptual framework.

The quantitative part collected primary data by questionnaires. It used primary data to examine the impact of H&M’s reports on consumer buying decision so as to examine the impact of sustainability accounting on sales performance. A positive relationship between H&M’s reports and consumer buying decision would suggest that consumers purchase more because the reports. Then, the research would show the positive relationship between sustainability accounting and sales performance.

3.5 Data Collection

3.5.1 Secondary data

This research collected secondary data from H&M’s official websites, especially annual report. All secondary data came from reliable sources.

3.5.2 Questionnaires

For the quantitative part, this research used questionnaires to collect data from customers of H&M. The sample size was 102, and convenience sampling technique was applied. Questionnaire is the most suitable technique for this dissertation to collect the quantitative data. It can effectively collect quantitative data in a short-term. It is easy to use questionnaire collecting massive data from a large study population (Kervin, 1999). Statistical software package can fast and accurately analyse numerical data of the questionnaire. The internet is the most effective approach to spread the questionnaire widely and rapidly. Inquires can reach the study population by spreading the link of the questionnaire website via email and social media. Design process of a questionnaire can be complex and time costly, but the inquirer can effectively adopt SPSS and other statistical software packages to analyse data from questionnaires. Moreover, online questionnaires are economical for students in comparison of other means of data collection, such as experiments. Due to these benefits of questionnaires, this research chose them.

This research adopted online questionnaires and developed the website for the questionnaires on SurveyMonkey. com. The questions in these questionnaires showed in Appendix I. These questions were divided into three groups. The first group collected data about respondents’ demographics information. The second group was designed to collect data about respondents’ consumption on H&M and fast fashion products. The third group collected data to examine the independent variables and the dependent variable in the conceptual framework. Its questions developed in accordance with communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, social influence evaluation, environmental influence evaluation. Also, the group covered three questions developed for measuring sales performance. The group used Likert-scale including strongly agree, agree, neutrality, disagree and strongly disagree. The Likert-scale allowed the questionnaire to effectively describe respondents’ opinions and feelings.

The sample size was 102 and the questionnaire targeted at customers of H&M. It requested participants to read H&M’s sustainability report and then fulfil these questions.

3.6 Sampling Technique

This research adopted convenience sampling technique. This technique allowed the researcher to complete primary data collection within a short-term. It was effective for the researcher to access participants. It enables researchers to collect data from those participants who are easy to access (Gill and Johnson, 2002). By the technique, the researcher shared the questionnaires to social media, to friends, to acquaintances, and to those who were likely to frequently purchase fast fashion products. Meanwhile, the researcher requested these participants to share the questionnaire to their friends and social media. The researcher motivated these participants in name of sustainability cause.

On the other hand, probability sampling techniques were not practicable. They require a sample frame ensuring that all research populations have the same probability to be accessed. This means that the research must have the capability to input all fast fashion consumer in the UK into a data base and then select them if it attempted to use probability sampling techniques. Apparently, the research cannot build such data base. Hence, these techniques did not apply.

3.7 Data Analysis

3.7.1 Qualitative Data Analysis

This research adopted narrative analysis to address qualitative data. Narrative analysis enabled the researcher to analyse data from different sources including H&M’s reports and industry reports. Meanwhile, documentary analysis was applied to address these reports. The research used the conceptual framework, GRI standards, TBL framework and the 7 criteria of evaluating a sustainability report’s quality (Singhal and Dev, 2016).

3.7.2 Statistical Analysis

To address quantitative data, the research used frequency, descriptive, correlation and regression analysis. Frequency and descriptive analysis were adopted to analyse participants’ demographics and consumption of fast fashion products. Correlation and regression analysis were used to test the conceptual framework. Correlation analysis tested the strength of the relationship between those independent variables and the dependent variable alone. Regression analysis examined the significance of the relationship.

3.8 Ethical Conducts

The researcher was aware of ethical standards during process of conducting the research. The research strictly obeyed the University’s ethical conduct. It was an honest research and involved no deception. It directly revealed its purposes, aims and significance to the participants by a consent letter. The consent letter illustrated what was the purpose of the research, what kind of questions it would ask, and what the right they had. Thence, potential participants had been clear about this research before they determined to provide data. They had the right to withdraw from this research or their data before 23 August 2020. To protect participants, the research adopted anonymous strategy that did not collect and record any information related with their identity.

This research was confidential. Its data is only available to the University and will be destroyed before November 2020. To avoid conflicts, the research did not plan debriefing and involve commercial sensitive information. The data has been locked in the researcher’s working computer.

3.9 Summary

This chapter justified the research methodologies chosen and implemented by this research in accordance with the research onion. This research used realism philosophy and deductive approach. In accordance with realism philosophy, this research studied the case study of H&M and has two parts: quantitative and qualitative part. Quantitative data was collected by questionnaire and analysed by statistical analysis techniques. Qualitative part adopted secondary data and analysed by narrative analysis and documentary analysis.

4.0 Data Analysis

4.1 Qualitative Analysis

H&M paid heavy attention to sustainability reporting and non-financial reporting. The group releases three reports annually including Annual Report, Sustainability Report and Corporate Governance Report. Its 2019 Annual Report includes both financial and non-financial information, covering corporate governance reporting, sustainability reporting and financial reporting. It Annual Report can be viewed as a comprehensive report that reveals its overall performance in a year but focuses on financial reporting. In this report, there are only one paragraph discussed its sustainability risks, its sustainability strategy and a very vague aims of sustainability management (HM Group, 2020a, p.41). Meanwhile, the Annual Report has specific illustrations about its corporate governance including the laws applied to H&M, internal control policy, corporate governance structure, board issues, committees, organisational structure, board members, etc. between pages 22 to 39 (HM Group, 2020a). The discourse of its corporate governance is very specific including the photos of board members and auditing members. In this 88-page annual report, the term of ‘sustainability’ is used for 105 times, ‘responsibility/responsibilities’ shows 42 times, ‘environment/environmental’ is used for 27 times, and ‘social’ is used for 18 times. This reflects that the report has a certain level of involvement in disclosure of sustainability management.

H&M’s sustainability report is the core meaning of revealing its sustainability performance. Its 2019 sustainability report has 85 pages and mentions ‘sustainability’ for 105 times (HM Group, 2020b). The report reveals specific and a large amount of sustainability management information. This research used the conceptual framework to analyse the sustainability report.

4.1.1 Communication Effectiveness

H&M adopted a variety of approaches to spread its sustainability accounting reporting. It has four versions of sustainability report (Appendix II). First one is a webpage version of sustainability report which is shorter. This version focuses on highlights of its sustainability performance. The second version has many sections and each section shows specific information. This version focuses on storytelling. The third version is a special webpage featuring videos and attractive pictures (Appendix II). As Appendix II shows, the webpage of sustainability reporting creates strong visual attractiveness and only contains few words, which inputs marketing communication techniques into the sustainability accounting reporting. The video in the webpage shows H&M’s sustainability philosophy and value and highlights its significant contributions. The fourth version is full sustainability reports which is presented in format of PDF. It is quite easy to access these reports by search engines. The four versions of sustainability reporting target at different audiences. Overall, the communication effectiveness is high.

4.1.2 Transparency

Audit committee is related with the transparency of a sustainability report. The sustainability report, H&M’s Annual Report and Corporate Governance Report illustrated their auditors. The 2019 sustainability report did not have an auditing committee but was audited by two authorized public accountants. In the page 83 of the sustainability report, the auditors claim their assurance of the report. The auditors were Åsa Lundvall and Charlotte Söderlund who were authorized public accountant. The assurance of the auditor contributes to the report’s credibility. On the other hand, the Corporate Governance Report and the Annual Report had a larger auditing team. Yet, the two reports do not cover much content about H&M’s sustainability management. Furthermore, the two auditors of the sustainability report claim that they have limited responsibility and limited assurance. Their responsibility was not to audit authenticity of the content that the report released. Instead, their responsibility was to conclude the GRI index H&M used in the specified documents based the limited assurance procedures they adopted. In other words, they checked whether H&M used GRI index as the report claimed, such as the Figure 4. Overall, the auditing of the report is limited.

Meanwhile, other third parties’ opinion also can be used to measure the sustainability report’s credibility. Many press media reported that the Norwegian Consumer Authority (CA) pointed out H&M’s insufficient information leading consumers (Dezeen, 2019; Fast Company, 2019; Fortune, 2019; and Hypebeast, 2019). As a governmental authority that protects the customer interests in Norway, the CA said that the company offers “insufficient” information about the sustainability of the collection in its sustainability reporting. It claimed that the company did not offer sufficient detail justifying its argument that their clothes less polluting than others. Overall, the transparency of H&M’s sustainability reporting is below average level.

4.1.3 Environmental Influence Evaluation and Social Influence Evaluation

H&M claimed that its Sustainability report complies with GRI and ISO standards (HM Group, 2020a). To evaluate H&M’s environmental and social impacts, this research examined the gap between H&M’s actual disclosure and expectations. It used the expectations from GRI standards and TBL framework.

The GRI standards has three dimensions including economic influence, environmental impacts, and social impacts. In terms of environmental influence, the report has the section, ‘Circular & Climate Positive’ covering management performance for climate and water, introducing its approach to circularity, and debriefing its activities caused environmental impacts throughout its value chain including design, materials, microfibers, chemicals and packaging. This section justifies the benefits of its circularity strategy. According to GRI standards, it reveals its consumption of energy, electricity, natural gas, oil and others, with specific figures between 2016 and 2019.

Figure 4: (Source: HM Group, 2020b)

However, it did not report its exact water consumption. As figure 5 shows, the report indicates many percentages but does not show the exact figure of water consumption, which means that the figure can be huge.

Figure 5: (Source: HM Group, 2020b)

Furthermore, the report does not cover land population, waste management, transportation, pollution of sound and air according to the GRI standards. The report reveals its waste minimizing strategy, approach, and performance. Nevertheless, it does not clarify how itdispose its wastes. As figure 6 shows, the proportion of recycled materials and other sustainably sourced material shows a growing trend in percentage. However, the report never shows how much material it exactly used.

Figure 6: (Source: HM Group, 2020b)

Given that the report did not cover its waste dispose approach, its water consumption, transportation, and pollution of air, it did not meet the GRI standards.

Economic influence (profit) is another important dimension in GRI reporting and TBL framework, and it should reveal H&M’s contributions to local economic development, infrastructure improvements, growth in market share and reduction in energy consumption rather than net income in traditional accounting. The H&M’s sustainability report barely has disclosure of its economic impacts. The report has large content describing H&M’s reduction in energy use and how the group achieved. For example, it improved the heating, ventilation, air condition and lighting systems in its stores and worked with logistics partners to optimise its routes (H&M, 2020, pp.31). However, the report has no content about H&M’s contribution to local economic growth, and infrastructure improvements. This suggests that H&M has low economic influence.

Social influence (People) also is a prominent pillar in GRI standards and TBL framework. The sustainability report focuses H&M’s policy, approach and performance of fairness and equality in its human resource management and its supply chain. This effectively addresses the labour issues in fashion industry. Between page 51 and 75, the report specifically justified its fairness and equality policy, approaches and performance. More importantly, the report illustrates its diversity and inclusion performance and policy. Furthermore, given that most sustainability issues of fast fashion brands come from their complicated supply chain. The report has the section that reveals how H&M ensure the sustainability of its suppliers between page 77 and 80. However, it does not illustrate how H&M helps its suppliers. In GRI standards, companies are expected to contribute to local communities & suppliers, local worker capabilities, improvements in communicative capabilities in various communities, increase in capacity of local worker, improvements in industry governance as well as commercial standards. Nevertheless, H&M did not fulfil these expected responsibilities in accordance with GRI standards.

4.1.4 Credibility

Credibility means how much a sustainability reporting can convince stakeholders. The sustainability report claims that it complies with GRI standards (GRI content index 2019) and its own reporting guidelines. In the page 83, the report indicates that its disclosure complies with rules of GRI standards, including the following disclosure: material topics and boundaries, stakeholder engagement, energy, emissions, materials and anti-corruption. For example, the report claims that its energy consumption information complies with Disclosure (302-1) of GRI standards. Meanwhile, it shows the page number of the energy consumption information. By demonstrating its obedience to GRI standards, the report shows a great credibility.

Figure 7

Meanwhile, the credibility of the report is related with its equality. To evaluate the quality, this research uses the 7 criteria of evaluating a sustainability report’s quality proposed by Singhal and Dev (2016).

Content – the report has detailed content (85 pages) justifying its sustainability management including strategy, goal, approach and performance. It takes examples, provides figures, makes justification and explanation. However, the report uses many percent figures rather than reveals the exact number or amount of its consumption and wastes, as discussed in Section 4.1.3, which compromises its credibility.

Materiality – the report has numerical data, text and pictures, showing a good quality.

Completeness – the report barely involves its economic impacts, as discussed in Section 4.1.3, which compromises its quality.

Stakeholder Inclusiveness - the report considers the following stakeholders: suppliers, logistics provider, employees, suppliers’ employees, customers, and government. However, it barely considers local community and only mentions local community once. The report claims that it has the goal to improve local communities to manufacture and market responsible rattan goods (HM Group, 2020b, pp.42). Overall, its stakeholder inclusiveness is high.

Sustainability context – H&M did not fulfil some expectations, as discussed in Section 4.1.3. Thus, its performance in sustainability context medium.

Accuracy – the report uses many specific figures to show its performance, making readers feel accuracy. It is important for them to actually do their own calculations.

Comparability – the report makes many comparisons in form of table and chart helping reader to understand H&M’s progress in sustainability performance. As figure 5 shows, the report shows its consumption of energy in 5 years to show its progresses.

Criterion	The 2019 Sustainability of H&M
Content	Medium
Materiality	High
Completeness	High
Stakeholder Inclusiveness	High
Sustainability context	Medium
Accuracy	Not measurable
Comparability	High
Overall Quality	Above Average

Table 1

4.1.5 Sales Performance

As figure 8 shows, the sales performance of H&M has been continuously growing between 2019 and 2015, which could be partly explained by H&M’s sustainability accounting reporting. However, there are many factors affecting its sales performance. The increase in sales performance only can suggest the relationship between sustainability accounting reporting and sales performance. Hence, this research further conduct quantitative analysis.

Figure 8 Sales of H&M

(Source from: HM Group, 2020a)

4.2 Quantitative Analysis

4.2.1 Demographic Analysis

102 participants involved into this research, including 41 male and 61 female.

Gender
		Frequency	Percent
Valid	Male	41	40.2
	Female	61	59.8
	Total	102	100.0

Table 2

Figure 9

The largest age group is 26-to-30-years old accounting for 38.2%, followed by 20-to-25-years old (21.6%), 31-35-years old (21.6%), and 36-to-40-years-old (12.7%). The smallest age group is ‘over-40-years old’.

Age Distribution
		Frequency	Percent
Valid	20 – 25	22	21.6
	26 – 30	39	38.2
	31 – 35	22	21.6
	36 – 40	13	12.7
	Over 40	6	5.9
	Total	102	100.0

Table 3

Figure 10

55.9% of participants have a bachelor degree. 26.5% of participants graduated from a college. 12.7% of participants have a master degree. Only 3.9% of participants graduated from a high school and 1 participant has a doctor degree.

Education Distribution
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	I graduated from a high school	4	3.9	3.9	3.9
	I gradated a college	27	26.5	26.5	30.4
	I am a Bachelor	57	55.9	55.9	86.3
	I have a master degree	13	12.7	12.7	99.0
	I am a doctor	1	1.0	1.0	100.0
	Total	102	100.0	100.0

Table 4

Figure 11: Education Distribution

Consumption

41.2% of participants visited H&M online/offline stores once week, followed by once two weeks (18.6%), over once a week (15.7%), once a month (14.7%), and once two months (9.8%).

How often do you purchase H&M’s product
		Frequency	Percent
Valid	Over once in a weak	16	15.7
	Once a week	42	41.2
	Once two weeks	19	18.6
	Once a month	15	14.7
	Once two months	10	9.8
	Total	102	100.0

Table 5

68.1% of participants concern sustainability issues when purchasing fast fashion products including 37.3% who are a little concerned and 30.4% who are very concerned.

How much do you concern sustainability issues when purchasing fast fashion products?
		Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Zero	16	15.7	15.7	15.7
	Maybe not	12	11.8	11.8	27.5
	Hard to way	5	4.9	4.9	32.4
	A little	38	37.3	37.3	69.6
	Very concerned	31	30.4	30.4	100.0
	Total	102	100.0	100.0

Table 6

4.2.2 Frequency analysis

The options of the questionnaire are quantified as table 7 shows.

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
	1	2	3	4	5

Table 7

Major participants view that they can easily access H&M’s sustainability accounting report including 33.3% agree and 21.6% strongly agree (mean=3.44). However, more participants do not view the report as easy to understand (mean=2.52). These results show that perceived communication effectiveness of the report is medium.

Communication Effectiveness

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
I can easily access H&M’s sustainability accounting report.	12.7%	6.9%	25.5%	33.3%	21.6%	3.44
The report is easy to understand for me.	29.4%	27.5%	17.6%	12.7%	12.7%	2.52

Table 8

The three question in table 8 asked participants’ credibility of the sustainability report in three angles. The mean of three questions (3.78, 3.31 and 3.58) is higher than 3 (neutral), suggesting that more participants trust the sustainability report than those who do not. These results show that the report has a high perceived credibility.

Credibility

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
I trust the content of H&M’s sustainability accounting report	11.8%	4.9%	12.7%	35.3%	35.3%	3.78
The report is trustworthy for me.	10.8%	14.7%	27.5%	26.5%	20.6%	3.31
I feel that the report is convincing.	6.9%	14.7%	21.6%	27.5%	29.4%	3.58

Table 9

32.4% of participants believe that important information is covered in the report, including 20.6% agree and 11.8% strongly agree (mean = 3.0). More than 60% of participant agree that the report helps them understand more about H&M’s sustainability performance including 33.3% (agree) and 27.5% (strongly agree). The mean of this question is 3.55). Moreover, 57.9% of participants perceive that the report is very transparent (27.5% agree) and 30.4% (strongly agree). Generally, the perceived transparency is medium.

Transparency

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
Important information is covered in the report.	13.7%	17.6%	36.3%	20.6%	11.8%	3.00
The report allows me to understand more about H&M’s sustainability performance.	12.7%	7.8%	18.6%	33.3%	27.5%	3.55
The report is very transparent.	7.8%	22.5%	11.8%	27.5%	30.4%	3.5

Table 10

56.9% of participant perceive that H&M’s social influence is great after I read the report (Mean = 3.42). Also, the report makes many participants perceive H&M as a socially responsible business (Mean = 3.25). However, many respondents disagree or strongly disagree that H&M met their expectation on social responsibility (Mean = 3.09). Generally, social influence evaluation of H&M is medium.

Social Influence Evaluation

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
I believe H&M’s social influence is great after I read the report.	19.6%	6.9%	16.7%	25.5%	31.4%	3.42
I believe H&M met my expectation on its social responsibility after I read the report.	12.7%	20.6%	33.3%	15.7%	17.6%	3.09
I believe H&M is socially responsible after I read the report.	17.6%	13.7%	16.7%	29.4%	22.5%	3.25

Table 11

Half of participants feel that H&M has a great environmental influence (Mean=3.36). The report made many participants feel that the company is environmentally responsible (Mean = 3.245). It also met 51.9% of participants’ expectations on H&M’s environmental responsibility. Generally, the report has perceived environmental influence is great.

Environmental Influence Evaluation

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
I believe H&M’s environmental influence is great after I read the report.	13.7%	10.8%	25.5%	25.5%	24.5%	3.36
I believe H&M is environmentally responsible after I read the report.	13.7%	10.8%	31.4%	25.5%	18.6%	3.245
I believe H&M met my expectation on its environmental responsibility after I read the report.	8.8%	18.6%	20.6%	22.5%	29.4%	3.45

Table 12

56.9% of participant are willing to purchase more (Mean=3.42). 38.7% of participants are willing to repurchase immediately (Mean = 3.088). 39.2% of participants are willing to tell their friends (Mean = 3.06), which also contributes to sales performance.

Sales Performance

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree	Mean
I am willing to purchase more after I read the report.	11.8%	10.8%	20.6%	36.3%	20.6%	3.43
I am willing to repurchase today after I read the report.	12.7%	16.7%	32.4%	25.5%	12.7%	3.088
I am willing to tell my friends that H&M has a good sustainability performance after I read the report.	16.7%	13.7%	30.4%	25.5%	13.7%	3.06

Table 13

4.2.3 Correlation Analysis

As table 13 shows, this research finds a moderate and positive relationship between communication effectiveness, credibility, environmental influence evaluation as well as social influence evaluation and sales performance alone.

Correlation	Results	Status
Communication effectiveness and sales performance	0.553 0.000	Moderate, positive relationship
Credibility and sales performance	0.619 0.000	Moderate, positive relationship
Transparency and sales performance	0.746 0.000	Strong, positive relationship
Environmental influence evaluation and sales performance	0.658 0.000	Moderate, positive relationship
Social influence evaluation and sales performance	0.647 0.000	Moderate, positive relationship

Table 14

4.2.4 Regression Analysis

As Figure 11 shows, R value is 0.820 suggesting a strong relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. R Square is 0.672, indicating that communication effectiveness, transparency, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation can predict 67.2% of variants in sales performance.

Model Summary
Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate
1	0.820^a	0.672	0.655	0.61330

Table 15

In Table 15, P-value is 0.000, indicating that the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable is significant.

ANOVA^a
Model		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	73.988	5	14.798	39.342	0.000^b
	Residual	36.109	96	0.376
	Total	110.097	101

Table 16

P-value is larger than 0.05, showing an insignificant relationship. Therefore, communication effectiveness (0.363) and environmental influence evaluation (0.476) do not have a significant relationship with sales performance alone. On the other hand, credibility, transparency, and social influence evaluation significantly affect sales performance.

Coefficients^a
Model		Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
Model		B	Std. Error	Beta	t	Sig.
1	(Constant)	0.006	0.246		0.025	0.980
	Communication Effectiveness	0.072	0.078	0.077	0.915	0.363
	Credibility	0.227	0.086	0.216	2.625	0.010
	Transparency	0.471	0.090	0.486	5.214	0.000
	Environmental Influence Evaluation	-0.077	0.108	-0.077	-0.716	0.476
	Social Influence Evaluation	0.266	0.073	0.285	3.622	0.000
a. Dependent Variable: Sales Performance

Table 17

4.3 Summary of Findings

Based on the conceptual framework, the qualitative analysis finds that H&M’s sustainability report has a good performance in communication effectiveness, as well as medium performance in credibility, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation. The report’s transparency is below average level. Also, the analysis finds the increasing sales performance of H&M between 2015 and 2019, suggesting a positive relationship between sustainability accounting report and sales performance.

The quantitative analysis shows that communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation positively affect sales performance. Also, credibility, transparency, and social influence evaluation significantly affect sales performance. Furthermore, the analysis finds that the sustainability accounting report has a high perceived credibility, a medium perceived transparency, and medium social influence evaluation.

5.0 Discussion

What is the relationship between sustainability accounting reporting and sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry?

Both qualitative and quantitative analysis show that sustainability accounting reporting positively affect sales performance in the UK. This is consistent with CSR theory and many previous studies. Previous studies can be used to explain the positive relationship.

Sustainability accounting report has positive impact on management (Burritt et al., 2002; Gabel and Sinclair-Desgagne, 1993; and Guo and Yang, 2014). In the case of H&M, its sales performance has been continuously growing between 2015 and 2019, suggesting that H&M’s management has been improving its sustainability management. As a result, by sustainability accounting report, H&M improved their sustainability management which fits customer expectations.

Also, the finding of a positive relationship between sustainability reporting and sales performance also is supported by the argument sustainability reporting positively affects financial performance (Ngwakwe, 2009; Greenwald, 2010; and Sam and Robeco, 2011). These scholars highlight that sustainability reporting helps management and thus contributes to financial performance. Their arguments can support this research’s finding.

This research finds that sustainability accounting report of H&M positively affects consumer buying decisions and thus contributes to sales performance. Consumers are willing to purchase more after they read the sustainability report. This finding is supported by many previous studies (Köppl and Neureiter, 2004; Parung, 2019; and Yu and Zhao, 2015). According to Yu and Zhao (2015), sustainability acts a prominent role in consumer purchase decision process. Sustainability reporting effectively improve organisations’ public relations (Köppl and Neureiter, 2004). Moreover, Parung (2019) found that the CSR does influence consumer’s purchase behaviour in the UK high-street industry. Especially, Guidndry and Patten (2010) find that higher quality of sustainability report leads to more positive market response. By and qualitative analysis, this report finds that the overall quality of H&M’s sustainability report is higher than medium level. The perceived quality is moderately high based on the frequency analysis. Thus, Guidndry and Patten (2010)’s argument supports this research’s findings. Based on these studies, this research argues that H&M’s sustainability reporting increases the perceived sustainability performance thus affecting consumer buying decisions and then sales performance.

Furthermore, this research finds the evidences supporting its conceptual framework. This research finds a moderate and positive relationship between communication effectiveness and sales performance. This finding is supported by (Bundy et al., 2013 and Oncioiu et al., 2020). The frequency analysis finds that consumers can easily find H&M’s sustainability report, which means that H&M effectively spread its sustainability reporting and helps more people to read. This finding is consistent with Bundy et al. (2013) argument that communication tools contribute to spread of sustainability reporting and making more audiences read it. It is supported by Oncioiu et al. (2020)’s research.

Also, the research finds a moderate and positive relationship between credibility and sales performance. This is supported by Oncioiu et al. (2020)’s research. Using CSR reporting standards such as ISO is relevant to financial performance and GRI improves the credibility of a sustainability reporting (Chen et al., 2015; and Oncioiu et al., 2020). Thus, this research considered GRI standards when analysed H&M’s sustainability performance. It found that H&M showed its obedience to GRI standards. Also, it used the 7 criteria of sustainability reporting quality and found the overall quality of the report was above average. Meanwhile, this research finds that the report’s perceived credibility is high.

The research finds evidence showing a strong and positive relationship between transparency and sales performance. This finding is supported by Oncioiu et al. (2020) who argue that transparency of sustainability reporting has a positive relationship with financial performance. Transparency of a sustainability report is related with the audit committee (Joy et al., 2012 and Oncioiu et al., 2020). Hence, this research evaluated the auditor of H&M’s sustainability reports. The qualitative analysis shows that the transparency is below average level. However, customers apparently use different criteria to evaluate the transparency. As a result, the perceived transparency is medium.

Furthermore, the research finds that a positive and moderate relationship environmental influence evaluation and sales performance. Also, the research shows a moderate and positive relationship between social influence evaluation and sales performance. The two findings are supported by Oncioiu et al. (2020). They also can be explained by the growing importance of sustainability in consume buying decisions in fashion industry.

What should H&M do to improve its sustainability accounting reporting thus increasing sales performance?

Based on the findings of the research, H&M should pay more attention to its sustainability accounting reporting. The qualitative analysis finds that H&M’s sustainability report has a good performance in communication effectiveness, but the quantitative analysis shows that perceived communication effectiveness is medium. Hence, H&M should further improve its communication effectiveness of its sustainability reporting. Some consumers indicate it is not easy for them to understand the report. It means that H&M should make its sustainability reporting more understandable for customers.

Transparency of H&M’s report is the major issue. The CA reveals that its report has low transparency because it provides insufficient information to prove its sustainability. Thus, providing more evidences and justifications is necessary. The qualitative analysis finds that credibility of its sustainability reporting is medium based on the 7 criteria of sustainability reporting quality. Thus, H&M should improve its content. Also, it should consider more about its sustainability context, which means that it should take more sustainability responsibilities according to external expectations. The results of the qualitative analysis also suggest that H&M should take more social and environmental responsibilities in accordance with the expectations from GRI, CSR theory and TBL framework. It should report its water consumption and other consumption of resources by exact figure rather than percentage. It should cover land population, waste management, transportation, pollution of sound and air according to the GRI standards. It should clarify how it dispose its wastes. Additionally, it should reveal H&M’s contributions to local economic development, infrastructure improvements, growth in market share and reduction in energy consumption. By improving these, H&M also can improve the transparency of its sustainability reports.

How should UK fast fashion marketers develop their sustainability accounting reporting to improve sales performance?

Based on the findings of this research, UK fast fashion marketers should pay heavy attention to sustainability accounting reporting. They can develop their sustainability accounting based on the conceptual framework by focusing communication effectiveness, transparency, environmental influence evaluation, social influence evaluation, and credibility, as discussed.

In terms of communication effectiveness, these marketers should use multiple approaches to develop their sustainability accounting reports. Also, they should make these reports more understandable. For transparency, these marketers should justify their sustainability management and show empirical evidences rather than simple description. Fashion brands should understand that low transparency tend to result in criticism from stakeholders. For credibility, these marketers should comply with GRI standards, TBL framework and use the 7 criteria. In terms of environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation, these marketers should pay attention to stakeholders’ expectations and then develop their management of social and environmental sustainability. These expectations can be found from GRI standards and TBL framework.

6.0 Conclusions

6.1 Summary of Findings

Based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis, this research shows that sustainability accounting reporting positively affect sales performance in the UK. This is consistent with CSR theory and many previous studies. Previous studies can be used to explain the positive relationship. The quantitative analysis indicates that communication effectiveness, credibility, transparency, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation positively affect sales performance. Also, credibility, transparency, and social influence evaluation significantly affect sales performance. Furthermore, the analysis finds that the sustainability accounting report has a high perceived credibility, a medium perceived transparency, and medium social influence evaluation. The qualitative analysis shows that H&M’s sustainability report has a good performance in communication effectiveness, as well as medium performance in credibility, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation. The report’s transparency is below average level. Also, the analysis finds the increasing sales performance of H&M between 2015 and 2019, suggesting a positive relationship between sustainability accounting report and sales performance.

6.2 Recommendation for H&M and all UK fast Fashion Marketers

H&M should further improve its communication effectiveness of its sustainability reporting. It should make its sustainability reporting more understandable for customers. To improve transparency of H&M’s report, providing more evidences and justifications is necessary. H&M should improve its content. Also, it should consider more about its sustainability context, which means that it should take more sustainability responsibilities according to external expectations. H&M should take more social and environmental responsibilities in accordance with the expectations from GRI, CSR theory and TBL framework. It should report its water consumption and other consumption of resources by exact figure rather than percentage, and cover land population, waste management, transportation, pollution of sound and air according to the GRI standards. It should clarify how it dispose its wastes. Moreover, it should reveal H&M’s contributions to local economic development, infrastructure improvements, growth in market share and reduction in energy consumption.

UK fast fashion marketers should concern sustainability accounting reporting. They can develop their sustainability accounting based on the conceptual framework by focusing communication effectiveness, transparency, environmental influence evaluation, social influence evaluation, and credibility.

6.3 Recommendations for Further Research

This research is constricted by its research strategy. By case study, it found out insights, whereas its results have a relatively low generalisation. Further research should improve the generalisation of the research’s findings. It can adopt survey based on positivism to examine these findings thus generating universal findings for the whole industry. It can use questionnaires to have a larger sample size and study the impact of sustainability accounting reporting on sales performance for the whole industry. Furthermore, this research finds that communication effectiveness, transparency, environmental influence evaluation and social influence evaluation can predict 67.2% of variants in sales performance. It means that 32.8% of variants in sales performance is affected by other variables. Furthermore, further research can explore these variables by interviewing.

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Appendix I

Dear Respondents

I am a postgraduate and collecting data for my final year dissertation.

If you are a fast fashion buyer or have purchased H&M’s product, you are invited.

This is a research that studies the impact of sustainability accounting reporting on sales performance in the UK fast fashion industry. It has the purpose to explore whether sustainability accounting can improve sales performance and how to use it to increase sales. It focuses on how consumer response to sustainability reporting and which elements of sustainability accounting encourage consumers to purchase more thus contributing to sales performance.

This research is significant because it investigates sustainability issues in fast fashion industry. As we known, fast fashion industry has serious environmental and social issues.

If you want to make contributions to sustainability in the industry, please read the 2019 sustainability report of H&M and fulfil this questionnaire.

To be noticed, you have the right to withdraw from this research or their data before 23 August 2020. But, please fulfil this questionnaire as much as possible because we concern the environment and society. This research does not collect and record any information related with your identity.

Thank you!

Have your ever purchase H&M’s product?

Yes

How often do you visit H&M online/offline stores?

Over once in a weak

Once a week

Once two weeks

Once a month

Once two months

How much do you concern sustainability issues when purchasing fast fashion products?

· Zero

· Maybe not

· Hard to way

· A little

· Very concerned

What is your gender?

Male

Female

How old are you?

20 – 25

26 – 30

31 – 35

36 – 40

Over 40

What is your education level?

I graduated from a high school

I gradated a college

I am a Bachelor

I have a master degree

I am a doctor

Please read the following statement and choose the option which is the closest one to your opinion

Communication Effectiveness

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I can easily access H&M’s sustainability accounting report.	1	2	3	4	5
The report is understandable for me.	1	2	3	4	5

Credibility

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I trust the content of H&M’s sustainability accounting report	1	2	3	4	5
The report is trustworthy for me.	1	2	3	4	5
I feel that the report is convincing.	1	2	3	4	5

Transparency

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
Important information is covered in the report.	1	2	3	4	5
The report allows me to understand more about H&M’s stainability performance.	1	2	3	4	5
The report is very transparent.	1	2	3	4	5

Social Influence Evaluation

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I believe H&M’s social influence is great after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I believe H&M met my expectation on its social responsibility after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I believe H&M is socially responsible after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5

Environmental Influence Evaluation

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I believe H&M’s environmental influence is great after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I believe H&M is environmentally responsible after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I believe H&M met my expectation on its environmental responsibility after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5

Sales Performance

	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
I am willing to purchase more after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I am willing to repurchase today after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5
I am willing to tell my friends that H&M has a good sustainability performance after I read the report.	1	2	3	4	5

Appendix II

The First Version

The Second Version

The Third Version

The Fourth Version

Appendix III

Correlations
		Sales performance	Communication effectiveness
Sales performance	Pearson Correlation	1	.553^**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000
	N	102	102
Communication effectiveness	Pearson Correlation	.553^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
	N	102	102
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Correlations
		Sales performance	Credibility
Sales performance	Pearson Correlation	1	.619^**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000
	N	102	102
Credibility	Pearson Correlation	.619^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
	N	102	102
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Correlations
		Sales performance	Transparency
Sales performance	Pearson Correlation	1	.746^**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000
	N	102	102
Transparency	Pearson Correlation	.746^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
	N	102	102
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Correlations
		Sales performance	Social influence evaluation
Sales performance	Pearson Correlation	1	.647^**
	Sig. (2-tailed)		.000
	N	102	102
Social influence evaluation	Pearson Correlation	.647^**	1
	Sig. (2-tailed)	.000
	N	102	102
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The Impact of Sustainability Accounting Reporting on Sales Performance in the UK Fast Fashion Industry: The case of H&M

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

1.2 Research Significance

1.3 Research Objectives and Aims

1.4 Research Outline

2.0 Literature Review

2.1 The Concept of Sustainability

2.2 Sustainability Accounting and Sustainability Reporting

2.3 Sustainability in Fashion Industry

2.4 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting

2.4.1 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Management

2.4.2 The Impacts of Sustainability Accounting on Customers

2.4.3 The Impacts of Sustainability Reporting on Financial Performance

2.5 Research Gap

2.6 Conceptual Framework

2.6.1 Communication Effectiveness

2.6.2 Creditability

2.6.3 Transparency

2.6.4 Social Influence Evaluation

2.6.5 Environmental Influence Evaluation

2.7 Research Statement

2.8 Summary

3.0 Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.1 Research Philosophy

3.2 Research Approach

3.3 Case Study

3.4 Mixed Research

3.5 Data Collection

3.5.1 Secondary data

3.5.2 Questionnaires

3.6 Sampling Technique

3.7 Data Analysis

3.8 Ethical Conducts

3.9 Summary

4.0 Data Analysis

4.1 Qualitative Analysis

4.1.1 Communication Effectiveness

4.1.2 Transparency

4.1.3 Environmental Influence Evaluation and Social Influence Evaluation

4.1.4 Credibility

4.1.5 Sales Performance

4.2 Quantitative Analysis

4.2.1 Demographic Analysis

4.2.2 Frequency analysis

4.2.3 Correlation Analysis

4.2.4 Regression Analysis

4.3 Summary of Findings

5.0 Discussion

6.0 Conclusions

6.1 Summary of Findings

6.2 Recommendation for H&M and all UK fast Fashion Marketers

6.3 Recommendations for Further Research

References

Appendix I

Appendix II

Appendix III

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