Bæredygtighed som adgangsbillet: Et casestudie af Copenhagen Fashion Weeks bæredygtighedskriterier som styringsredskab til at fremme forandring i den danske modebranche

Bønnelykke, Kristine Winkler

4. semester

Kommunikation, Kandidat

2025

2025-06-02

77 pages

This thesis investigates how Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) attempts to foster change in the Danish fashion industry through its sustainability requirements, and what structural conditions and consequences this approach entails for participating fashion brands. Drawing on a comprehensive document analysis of CPHFW’s strategies, sustainability criteria, action plans, and public statements, the thesis explores how the organization uses its symbolic and organizational power to reframe sustainability as a requirement for access to the symbolic capital of the fashion week. The analysis is guided by a theoretical framework that combines Bourdieu’s field theory and aesthetic sociology, Carroll’s CSR pyramid, greenwashing literature, and the Earth Logic framework. The study shows that CPHFW assumes a self-regulatory role in the absence of legislative measures, transforming sustainability from a normative ideal into a formalized entry requirement. Minimum standards are used to operationalize accountability, but they also rely on technical documentation, organizational capacity, and aesthetic performance. This creates unequal access conditions, privileging brands with high levels of economic and symbolic capital, and risks marginalizing smaller or system-critical actors. Although CPHFW positions itself as a driver of transformation, the fashion field remains fragmented, and the responsibility for systemic change is distributed unevenly across actors. Furthermore, sustainability in CPHFW’s strategy is strongly shaped by aestheticization and strategic communication. Due to the field’s reliance on visual legitimacy and the absence of public documentation, accountability tends to be performed rather than substantively implemented. This increases the risk of symbolic responsibility and structural greenwashing, not necessarily as intentional deception, but as a result of structural complexity and communicative selectivity. CPHFW presents itself as a facilitator of sustainable transformation, yet fails to publicly document measurable effects on brand-level practices, which raises questions about the actual impact of its strategy. Concluding, the thesis finds that CPHFW’s approach has the potential to create structure and direction in an unregulated field by setting internal norms. However, change occurs largely on the system’s own terms. The strategy enables movement within the field but does not challenge the growth-driven structures it is embedded in. Future research should explore how participating brands interpret and implement the criteria in practice, and whether the strategy leads to lasting transformation or merely reinforces symbolic legitimacy.

Bæredygtighed ; Mode ; Modeuger ; Copenhagen Fashion Week ; Bæredygtighedskrav ; Bæredygtighedsstrategi ; Modeteori ; Bourdieu ; Feltteori ; Simmel ; Lipovetsky ; Corporate Social Responsibility ; Greenwashing ; Earth Logic

Download
Vis denne rapport i AAU Studenterprojekter