Elke Schüßler and Nora Lohmeyer published a book chapter on "Rana Plaza as a threat to the fast fashion model? An analysis of institutional responses to the disaster in Germany" in an edited volume, called "Eco Friendly and Fair: Fast Fashion and Consumer Behavior." The volume has been edited by Carolin Becker-Leihold and Mark Heuer and published in the series "Sustainability in Textiles" at Routledge.

The book provides a comprehensive overview of new insights into consumer behavior mechanisms in order to shift practices toward sustainable fashion and to minimize the negative impacts of fast fashion on the environment and society. Particularly, it explores the economic drivers of fast fashion and what social, environmental and political factors should be maintained, and business approaches adopted, in order for fast fashion to be a sustainable model.

The chapter written by Elke Schüßler and Nora Lohmeyer looks at the main institutional responses to the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013. It argues that the catastrophe produced institutional change in some areas, but has thus far failed to do so in others. Focusing on the case of Germany, which has significant garment import from Bangladesh, it shows that the majority of governance initiatives are production-oriented and not consumption-oriented. This means that they are mostly geared towards changing working conditions at supplier factories and not towards challenging the fast fashion business model and the related consumer behavior. By drawing on the ‘focusing events’ framework the chapter outlines the problem definition, policy templates, and actors behind the most important initiatives and is thereby able to offer explanations for this outcome. The chapter concludes by outlining alternative consumption-oriented courses of action that could complement production-oriented initiatives.