To what extent digital tools moderate in the relationship between resilience and environmental sustainability in fashion supply chain

There is growing demand for an environmentally sustainable fashion supply chain from stakeholders to improve the working conditions in developing nations. Hence, SC actors must reconcile the environmental sustainability from two perspectives (waste management and pollution & emission) while evaluating the role of digital tools in achieving these goals. This paper investigates how digital tools moderate the relationship between resilience practices and environmental sustainability. It focuses on four resilience constructs—visibility, agility, flexibility, and collaboration and several digital tools, which are commonly cited in the supply chain literature. This cross-sectional study collects data from 190 actors in the fashion supply chain in Bangladesh through a questionnaire. The PLS-SEM was conducted using Smart-PLS 4.0 to test the proposed hypotheses. Our findings particularly confirm that digital tools strengthen the impact of visibility on waste management of environmental sustainability. That means the greater adoption of digital tools for transparency among supply chain actors enhanced efficient waste management, remanufacturing, green supply chains, circular economy and natural conservation in fashion supply chain operations. Visibility through information sharing has been moderated by blockchain-based circular economy, AI-based waste management, and technology-based green supply chain design for environmental sustainability. However, our study did not find any other moderating effect of digital tools in connecting agility, flexibility, collaboration, and environmental sustainability. These mixed outcomes underscore the need for further confirmatory analyses, incorporating constructs across various industries. A key avenue for advancing the theoretical model is examining specific digital tools rather than considering digital tools as a collective entity.