Identified barriers to sustainability innovation in Kazakhstan

There are 2 main barriers identified within Kazakhstani Fashion industry are: mindset and ‘sustainability’ as a term.
- Mindset barrier is significant in case of Kazakhstani fashion industry as lack of mindfulness is the reason why people refuse to help the environment and act towards sustainability. Even if the population and people from industry are willing to make more sustainable choices, they still tend to make them according to their habits.
- Traditional mindset makes it even more difficult to become more sustainable and implement sustainability as the main part of their businesses. The main reason for that is because Kazakhstan used to be a communist republic when the country was a part of the Soviet Union until 1991. Even though after gaining independence, the communist mindset remained. In addition to that, people think that one individual’s act will not make a huge difference, as they believe that they are alone in their concern.
- The main challenge here is to change the mindset and try to convince people that little change can make a difference and that being ‘green’ and acting responsibly towards society and the environment is actually ‘cool’.
- the term ‘sustainability’ itself can be considered as another barrier facing not only fashion industry in Kazakhstan but “Symbat” fashion academy as well. Sustainability means different thing to different people and can also be measured differently. Misunderstanding the word still remains an issue, because if it is not clear to the public what sustainability means, no actions can be implemented.
- While conducting the research it was difficult to come across with information on sustainable development in Kazakhstani fashion industry. However it was noticeable that the industry is actively participating in number of charitable events and ‘Symbat’ fashion academy is not an exception.
- The word sustainability is still not used in broad terms in Kazakhstan. People tend to use words such as ‘green’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ rather than using the main term sustainability. Therefore the key meaning of the definition can be lost and will stop organisations and government to implement sustainability as one of the main part of country’s development.