Pro PLanet www.ceotodaymagazine.com 34 about. But times are changing. Consumers and influential business associations alike are calling for companies to take responsibility for their impact on more stakeholders than just their shareholders. There are signs that the luxury fashion houses of the world are at work, quietly behind the scenes, to develop their responses to the new world that demands sustainability. In a surprise announcement in October 2021 for example, luxury French womenswear brand, Chloé, revealed it had been certified as a B Corporation (or B Corp for short). B Corps are becoming increasingly prominent amongst consumer-facing brands as a tangible expression of their ethical and green commitments. B Corps are widely recognised as companies that uphold the highest social and environmental standards. Owned by Richemont, one of the world’s heavyweight luxury groups, Chloé’s B Corp certification pipped rival conglomerate Kering (owner of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Venetta & more) to the post. Kering is often seen as the most sustainably conscious of the three luxury groups (the third in the troika being LVMH). It is highly likely that other brands will follow in the steps of Chloé in the not-too-distant future. The concept of the triple bottom line does not, of course, only relate to corporate governance. More typically it’s about the human cost of production and consumption habits: working conditions, wage disparity, discrimination, etc. With more highly skilled workforce of artisans, and fatter margins with which to potentially reward its workers, luxury fashion’s track Nicole Rawling, CEO of Materials Innovation Initiative – an organisation that works to accelerate the development of next-gen materials – suggests that the fashion industry trails 5 years behind that of the food and drink industry. Indeed plant-based vegan burgers are now mainstream, so we can expect to see plant-based vegan leathers entering the market en masse in the near future. Stock market listings back up this hypothesis: vegan burger brand Beyond Meat (ticker: BYND) IPOed in May 2019 at a valuation of $1.5B, whilst “sustainable” footwear brand Allbirds (ticker: BIRD) went public in November 2021 with a valuation of £1.7B. Fashion, a $2.5 trillion industry, is no meagre player. It is supported by a complex supply chain that crisscrosses the globe. The industry is well-known for provoking a whole host of negative externalities, including mammoth water use, major carbon emissions and high volumes of toxic waste. Fast fashion may be the wellspring for the vast majority of these issues, but its luxury cousin does not go untainted. The concept of the triple bottom line – people, planet, profit – provides a helpful triptych upon which to examine luxury fashion’s future in terms of sustainability. PEOPLE: Governance & Working Conditions A company’s leadership (executives and owners alike) is one of the most crucial aspects of a company’s transition towards a greener business model. Up until recently, shareholder primacy was the only metric a company need care record vis-à-vis people puts it less in the spotlight when it comes to conversations about ethics and sustainability. This is unlikely to change in the future. PLANET: Raw Materials One of the most tangible signs of a company’s adoption of more sustainable practices is its choice of raw materials. The luxury industry has been slow to adopt pioneering, eco-friendly materials. In large part this is due to a lack of high-quality eco-free equivalents - or so says Patrick Thomas, the former CEO of Hermès. In March 2021 however, the brand – that pinnacle of luxury – revealed its first piece of luggage made… from mushrooms. It was a project 3 years in the making, again suggesting that luxury fashion brands are covertly working behind the scenes, taking the time it takes to create products that live up to their promise of uberquality. Other high-end fashion brands have begun to experiment with bio-based or bio-engineered materials. Stella McCartney has always been leatherfree; Prada has pledged that it is now only using recycled nylon in its cult nylon-based bags and accessories and Marni has incorporated grape “leather” into some of its footwear. At the time of writing, there are over 70 companies around the world developing “green” alternatives to leather. Many of them are based on plants (AppleSkin™ from apples; Pinatex® from pineapples; Vegea from grapes; Desserto from cactus), others use bio-engineering (MycoWorks & MYLO) and others still are growing real leather in the lab (VitroLabs Inc.).
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