Corporate Narratives of the Circular Economy: Text Mining and Topic Modeling of Fast Fashion Disclosures

Abstract The fashion industry has become a major global polluter due to poor resource management and large quantities of waste downstream in its value chain. To prevent these impacts, the adoption of circular economy (CE) principles has become the main strategic priority of companies in this sector, guided by frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the European Union’s Circular Economy strategy. Our study explores how corporate narratives about circularity evolved over time, using the Swedish multinational H&M Group as a case study. The research is guided by a mixed methodological approach that combines historical analysis of sustainability reports and press releases with text mining techniques (word frequency and topic modelling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation). Covering the period 2013–2025, the research traces the evolution of CE-focused narratives and corporate strategies. The findings reveal a cyclical narrative where topics such as “impacts”, “materials”, “products”, “water”, “chemicals”, “innovation”, “customers” and “circular change” replace each other at the forefront of sustainability strategy. By integrating issue life cycle theory with text analysis, the study contributes to a better understanding of how reporting can become a strategic tool in the transition toward circularity. The results offer insights for policymakers, industry practitioners, and civil society regarding sustainability themes and their evolution.