Social Redistribution, Not Digital Infrastructure, Drives Climate-Conscious Behavior Among Professional Uniform Wearers : Evidence from India's Hospitality and Retail Sectors

Abstract

Purpose : Professional uniforms are issued to well over 110 million workers in India across retail, hospitality, healthcare, and allied sectors, yet remain almost absent from the circular economy literature. This study identified which dimension of a Circular Textile Program (CTP) – textile recycling, digital tracking, circular performance monitoring, or social redistribution – most strongly drove climate-conscious behavior among professional uniform wearers, and estimated the scale of climate mitigation a sector-wide rollout could plausibly achieve.

Design/Methodology/Approach : A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design combined a stratified, simulated dataset (n = 350), calibrated against 12 peer-reviewed structural equation modeling studies and analyzed with PLS-SEM, with a thematic analysis of five operating workwear-circularity programs among hospitality and retail employees in India.

Findings : All structural paths were supported. Contrary to the infrastructure-first assumption dominant in circular economy research, social redistribution, not digital tracking or recycling capacity, carried the largest path coefficient toward climate-conscious workforce behavior (β = 0.51, p < 0.001), and its effect on climate mitigation outcomes was fully mediated by behavioral transformation (β = 0.33, p < 0.001), together explaining up to 71% of variance in workforce-level climate consciousness. Scenario modeling built on these simulated parameters indicated that CTP adoption across 30% of India’s organized hospitality and retail workforce could divert roughly 24,000 tonnes of workwear waste and 76,800 tonnes of CO2e annually.

Practical Implications : These results, provisional pending primary field validation, reposition circular textile policy around the social architecture of exchange rather than technological throughput. Employer-issued uniform programs should treat redistribution and reissue as the primary design variable, with direct relevance to India's Panchamrit climate commitments, its draft Extended Producer Responsibility framework for textiles, and SEBI’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting mandate for large listed employers.

Originality/Value : To our knowledge, this is the first study to test a structural model of CTP dimensions among professional or occupational uniform wearers rather than school-based or general consumer populations, and the first to isolate social redistribution, rather than digital or recycling infrastructure, as the dominant driver of climate-conscious workforce behavior.