Sustainable innovations in business-to-business at the crossroad: emerging paradoxes in the fashion industry

Purpose Relying on the market as network approach from the Industrial Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) Group, this paper considers sustainable innovations according to the circular economy approach. The paper aims to identify the main sustainability paradoxes that emerge for suppliers of innovative materials, thus affecting their business network relationships. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a qualitative methodological approach by investigating four case studies of fashion suppliers in the Italian context. Each case study particularly embraces the circular economy approach differently. The paper applies the case analysis method in the industrial marketing setting and counts on primary data from company interviews and secondary sources. Findings This study highlights the presence of four paradoxes in the scenario of sustainable innovative materials: the product and performance paradox, the sourcing and production network paradox, the market bifurcation paradox and the misleading perceptions paradox. These sustainability paradoxes affect all the company’s network relationships. Originality/value The paper focuses on the circular economy approach in B2B markets and originally contributes to the literature advancing sustainability as a major driver of innovation, exploring paradoxes. This work enriches the extant literature from a network perspective by conceptualizing four emerging sustainability paradoxes.