Sustainability Practices of RTXM Clothing Company: A Case Study

This case study examines the RTXM clothing company's sustainability initiatives, analyzing its stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, local communities, customers, and suppliers, and the impact of sustainability practices on each group. It explores the company's balanced scorecard, outlining key performance indicators across financial, customer, business process, and innovation & learning perspectives. The study compares suppliers, evaluating the merits and demerits of ethical versus low-cost options, ultimately recommending the socially responsible Green Fashion supplier. Furthermore, it presents a life cycle analysis of a t-shirt, detailing the environmental and social impacts of cotton production and proposing solutions to mitigate these effects. The case study concludes by emphasizing the importance of sustainability in business, highlighting its long-term benefits such as improved reputation, responsible resource use, and enhanced stakeholder relationships, using Interface global as an example.

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RTXM clothing company Case study
Q1. RTXM clothing company stakeholders
The following are RTXM company stakeholders;
Employees: These include the company’s employees and employees in the supply chain.
Employees will benefit from sustainability practices of the company in several ways. First,
employees will be paid according avoiding underpay either in the company or in the supply
chain of the company. Secondly, employees’ health and safety will be guaranteed while working
in the company. Lastly employees with have more opportunities and promotion as result training
from the company.
Shareholders: Sustainability in the company will impact shareholder negatively in the
short term and positively in the long term. In the short term, sustainability practices will require
resources to implement and also increase the cost of clothing in the company. This will reduce
short term dividends of the shareholders. In the long run, shareholders will get high sustainable
returns to their investment as a result of increased company reputation and environmental and
social sustainability.
Local communities: These include the local community living near the company and it
suppliers in the supply chain. The local community will benefit from clean environment, safe and
healthy neighborhood and abolishment of child labour. Therefore, the local communities will
benefit from low environmental and social impacts.
Customers: Sustainability in RTXM Company will increase the price of clothing to its
customers. This will deny customers low price clothing. On the other side, customers will benefit
from high quality clothing from the company. The customers will also benefit from positive
projects to the environment that will be undertaken by the company.
Suppliers: Sustainability in the company will increase the reliability of payments and
long term contract with it suppliers. Suppliers will be able to get payment on time and enter in
long term contacts that will enable the success of suppliers in the business. Suppliers will also

get support on their products from the company in the process of implementing sustainable
supply chain.
Q2. RTXM Balanced Scorecard
Financial
Indicator:
Ability to meet all financial obligation
Increase revenues
Maximization of profits
Customers
Quality Clothing
Timely delivery
Business Process
Indicators;
Reduce carbon emission to the environment
Proper waste management
Safe and healthy working environment
Innovation & Learning
Indicators;
Training of employees
New designs
The above balanced scorecard outlines performance key indicator in RTXM Company to
measure success in sustainability practices. The Balanced Scorecard gives a overall performance
of the company in different perspective. Theses perspectives are Financial, Customers, Business
Process, and innovation and learning in the company. Finance performance indicators will be the
ability of the company to meet its obligations, increase sales revenue, and maximize profit. The
important metric in this perspective performance will be dividends to the shareholders. Increase
in dividend to shareholders shows that the company is maximizing profiting through increased
sales revenue. Customer’s perspective performance indicators are quality clothing and delivery
time. The important metric to measure this perspective performance is number of complaints
received in every department. A reduction in number of complaints will indicate that customers
are getting high quality products form the company and delivery is made on time. Business
process performance indicators will be a reduction in carbon gas emission to the environment,
proper waste management, and safe and health workplace. This perspective performance metric
will be company carbon footprint level. A decrease in the level of carbon footprint of RTXM

Company will indicate that the company business processes are reducing the amount of carbon
emission, there is proper waste disposal, and the workplace environment is safe and health
(Neugebauer, Figge, and Hahn, 2016). The Innovation and learning performance of the Company
will be indicated by the training of employees and new designs developed within a specified
period of time. The important metric for innovation and learning will be the rate at which the
inventory is turnover. The inventory turnover refers to the period within which product clothing
will take to get sold. This metric will indicate that the company is performing in terms of high
skills and desirable designs in the market.
Q3. Choosing a Supplier between Green Fashion and Super Cheap
Supplier Demerits Benefits
Super Cheap  Child labour
 Low wages
 Long
working
hours
 Poor
working
conditions
 Improper
waste
management
 Large range of
products
 Short time
delivery
 Competitive
price
Green Fashion  Limited
range of
products
 Higher price
 Longer time
frame
 Ethical sourcing
of materials
 Promotes work
life balance of
employees
 Protects the
environment
 Supports
outsourcing

partners or
employees with
incentives.
From the analysis of Super Cheap and Green Fashion Suppliers, it evident that each supplier has
both advantages and disadvantages. Super Cheap Supplies are cheap and attractive but the
supplier neglects all the social responsibility of an entity. Green Fashion supplies are expensive
and take longer to supply but the supplier is socially responsible.
Green Fashion supplier is a better option for RTXM Company. Green Fashion operates ethically
to both the environment and people. This shows that Green Fashion Suppliers are socially
responsible in their operations. Therefore, choosing Green Fashion will enable RTXM Company
pursue it strategic objective of engaging in sustainable business practices. The RTXM will also
save the resources that could be used to offer incentives for supplier to engage in sustainable
business operations by choosing Green Fashion. Lastly, the choice of Green Fashion will
improve the company’s reputation through quality products, environmental protection, and
ethical sourcing.
Q4. Life Cycle Analysis of a T-Shirt

The following diagram is a life cycle analysis of a T-shirt in RTXM Company. The diagram
assesses the entail life of a t-shirt till to it disposal.
Analysis of two stages of Life cycle of a T-Shirt
Production of cotton
This stage of t-shirt involves growing of cotton plant. The process of growing cotton requires
several inputs of production for successful cotton harvest. The input used to grow cotton is
seedlings, water, fertilizers, pesticides, and human labour to plant, weed and harvest (Eilers et
al., 2016). These activities have adverse effect on the environment if not undertaken sustainably.
The following are impacts of cotton product ion;
Disposal/ Recycle;
Disposal of the T-shirt
Raw Material Extraction;
Polyester synthesis
Material Production;
Cotton growth
Production of Parts;
Ginning and ExtrusionAssembly;
Textile Manufacturing
Use;
T-shirt usage and
maintenance

Long working hour: This involve employees forced to work long hours in the farm with
an objective of exploiting them.
Safety and health working environment: The production farms of cotton use chemicals
that are harmful to human body. These chemicals are in forms of pesticides, herbicides, and
fertilizers that are used to control pests, weeds, and diseases and supplement nutrient to
maximum yield (Gamble, and Thompson, 2014). This environment is not safe for human being
to work on.
Carbon gas emission: This refers to green house gases emitted to the environment during
the process of growing cotton. Green houses gases damages the Ozone layer hence destroying
the environment. The gases are from fertilizer, pesticides, and on-farm fuel
Water pollution: Chemicals and excessive use of water in the farm lead to water pollution
and wastage.
Suggestions to reduce social and environmental impacts of cotton production
Use of safety protective gears on the farm: This will ensure that employees work in safe
environment.
The farms should record carbon footprint and strategize on minimizes carbon emissions.
Ethical usage of resources: This requires farm operators to use resources such as water
and soils responsibility to avoid their depletion.
There should be policies to protect working hours of employees to enhance work-life
balance in the firm.
Q5. Importance of sustainability
Sustainability in business means that all stakeholders’ interests in the business addressed. This
entails that the main objective of a company shifting from maximizing shareholders value. The
Company therefore has to engage in activities that are sustainable socially and to the
environment (Bansal, and DesJardine, 2014). The Company stakeholders are employees,
suppliers, local communities, consumers, and shareholders. Sustainability in the company

requires sourcing materials ethically, maintaining safe and healthy workplace, advocating for
work-life balance. Sustainability increases costs that reduces profits in the short term but has
several benefits in the long term. First, sustainability improves the company reputation that
increases sales in the long term. Customers nowadays want to buy from companies that are
socially responsible (Lueg, Pedersen, and Clemmensen, 2015. Secondly, sustainability enables
responsible use of resources avoiding depletion that can lead to closure of a business. This
enables the company to earn profits for a long period of time. Lastly, sustainability enables a
company to have good relationship with it stakeholders that increase reliability and long term
contracts that increase the company’s profits (Klettner, Clarke, and Boersma, 2014). For
example, Interface global, a carpet manufacturing company has been a market leader in
sustainability which has increased its earnings through improved reputation from customers and
ethical sourcing of raw materials.
References

Bansal, P. and DesJardine, M.R., (2014). Business sustainability: It is about time. Strategic
Organization, 12(1), pp.70-78.
Eilers, H., Eilers, H., Chong, W., Chong, W., Kim, J., Kim, J., Naganathan, H., Naganathan, H.,
Glavinich, T.E. and Glavinich, T.E., (2016). Impact of sustainability on business performance
and strategy for commercial building contractors. World Journal of Entrepreneurship,
Management and Sustainable Development, 12(4), pp.323-343.
Gamble, J.E. and Thompson Jr, A.A., (2014). Essentials of strategic management. Irwin
Mcgraw-Hill.
Klettner, A., Clarke, T. and Boersma, M., (2014). The governance of corporate sustainability:
Empirical insights into the development, leadership and implementation of responsible business
strategy. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), pp.145-165.
Lueg, R., Pedersen, M.M. and Clemmensen, S.N.,( 2015). The role of corporate sustainability in
a low‐cost business model–A case study in the Scandinavian fashion industry. Business Strategy
and the Environment, 24(5), pp.344-359.
Neugebauer, F., Figge, F. and Hahn, T., 2016. Planned or emergent strategy making? Exploring
the formation of corporate sustainability strategies. Business strategy and the environment, 25(5),
pp.323-336.