How do Swedish Fashion Companies Practice Demand Forecasting to Balance Operational Efficiency and Waste Reduction?

Sammanfattning

Abstract The fashion industry faces a structural tension between operational efficiency and waste reduction, with demand forecasting at the centre of this conflict. While companies increasingly invest in forecasting technologies, overproduction remains a persistent challenge. This study examines how Swedish fashion companies practice demand forecasting to balance these competing objectives, adopting a qualitative research design combining six semi-structured interviews with industry professionals and a thematic analysis of sustainability and annual reports from three anonymised fashion companies. Drawing on practice theory and paradox theory, the findings demonstrate that demand forecasting is not a purely technical process but a socio-organisational practice shaped by managerial judgment, organisational incentives, and competing commercial pressures. Overproduction emerges less as a forecasting failure than as a structural outcome of growth-oriented business models. The study further reveals a systematic gap between corporate sustainability narratives and operational reality: the behavioural and organisational dimensions of forecasting identified as primary drivers of excess inventory remain largely absent from public reporting. These findings reframe the research problem: balancing efficiency and waste reduction is fundamentally an organisational question about culture, incentives, and business model logic, rather than a forecasting accuracy problem. Note: AI tools (Grammarly and ChatGPT by OpenAI) were used for language editing & Interview transcription only and did not replace the authors' intellectual contribution.