Sustainability X Luxury Brands
What is sustainability? What makes a brand sustainable? Is luxury sustainable?
“In reality, a fashion brand doing one of the sustainable collection doesn’t make any real long term difference. But when sustainability is embedded into the supply chain, it is automatically embedded into the products” — Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability Officer at Kering.
Sustainability is a buzzword that has been around for a while now. The pandemic has brought values around sustainability into sharp focus, intensifying discussions and further polarising views around materialism, over-consumption and irresponsible business practices.
Consumers think of sustainability as a good cause, mostly restricted to organic cotton. However, many of them don’t know what to look for to determine if something is, in fact, sustainable.
Fashion is a global industry worth $2.5 trillion dollars, which employs around 60 million people, and is said to be one of the world’s most polluting industries. Modern Day Slavery is an endemic part of fashion’s business, and a lack of transparency and traceability across fashion supply chains is a major challenge. Fashion has the power to make positive change, and collaboration plays an important role in beginning to re-imagine currently damaging systems.
As stated by Professor Dilys Williams, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion — “We live in the age of Anthropocene”. –It is an era where the current geological age, is viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.
Man-made construct of climate change is also put against the man-made construct of human equality. We are the only spices that have created inequality amongst us.
In the world of sustainability — nothing is black and white, unfortunately. It is an amalgamation of various hues of green. This is why most often, sustainability can be confusing for the consumer.
Companies like Kering has adopted a 360-degree approach to sustainability.
“ Reduction in environmental footprint across the entire supply chain, advocating social welfare inside & outside the organizational group and innovating ways to find new sustainable solutions — are the key goals of the second-largest luxury conglomerate.
The Centre for Sustainable Fashion categorizes the concept of sustainability into agendas which helps you to gain a diverse perspective on fashion and sustainability.
These 4 Agendas will help you have a brief understanding of what actually makes a brand sustainable.
Social
Human skills are fundamental to each of the elements within a supply chain. The majority of clothes produced globally come from Asia and Latin America where the working population is often a victim of long working hours, low wages, poor health and safety and sexual harassment.
New York Times critic’s pick documentary, Invisible Hands, directed by journalist Shraysi Tandon, shines a bright light on human trafficking conditions taking place in developing countries and parts of Europe where markets and factories go unregulated. About 50% of trafficked victims, including children, are sold into forced labour.
Social sustainability should not be seen as charitable or philanthropic activities — a seemingly preferred action amongst premium and luxury brands. However, it is fundamental to their business practices.
Organizations now need to address the staggering social inequality, cases of negligence, violence and oppression and poor wage conditions.
Economical
International luxury fashion brands who continue to expand and increase profits year on year are able to succeed in accepted economic terms, yet they often fail in the context of planetary boundaries and human equality.
It is particularly interesting in case of luxury fashion because many of the problems and the drivers of their dominant economic logic are especially pronounced in the context of economic growth. This is all a problem because economic growth drives environmental damage. In the quest for growth, businesses try to sell more stuff leading to the problem of an increasing volume of consumption.
This issue is often associated with fast fashion but is also relevant in cases of luxury brands who offer six rather than two collections every year.
Growth is not just about selling more; it’s also about reducing cost. This essentially means, taking the craftsperson who is part of the process from design through manufacture and into delivery, and breaking it down into many small repetitive tasks that can either be done either by unskilled workers or machinery. This makes production cheaper but results in the loss of the craft. This is what has been referred to as “dehumanization” by that the art critic and political economist John Ruskin.
Since we see fashion as one of the most creative industries, it needs to redefine beyond current business model practices and factor in costs in environmental and human terms. We need a new economic perspective on luxury fashion.
Ecological
This agenda explores how we can honour nature through luxury fashion’s practices humans are responsible for an irreversible loss of nature leading to changes in the conditions for life.
The problem is complex, fashion’s environmental impact is not only related to raw materials and disposal, but also relates to many other issues such as carbon emissions from farming, manufacturing, transport, retailing, advertising, aftercare, and so on.
Fashion has been called “the second dirtiest industry in the world”. Land and water use, soil pollution and water pollution have devastating impacts on the environment. Intensive land-use for the production of natural materials such cotton, silk, leather, wool and cashmere has reduced the habitats available for many species, bringing many species of plants and animal to the brink of extinction. This has led to many ecosystems being disrupted and eventually generating to more biodiversity loss.
Many garment workers at the bottom of the supply chain are also exposed to hazardous chemicals endangering their lives as well. Lack of action to maintain human wellbeing from luxury fashion brands are reported by non-profit organizations such as KnowTheChain.
Luxury fashion plays a leading role to connect us with nature while respecting nature and respecting ourselves. It is time that fashion takes responsibility to “clean up its act”.
Cultural
In a culture where the brand name is the number one selling point for most of us, do luxury fashion ‘brands’ need to reset the model?
The current culture of luxury fashion focuses on celebrating the individualistic vision of a Creative Director. However, it strips away the layers of artifice and work of the hundreds of people’s lives and livelihoods contained in each object they create — a farmer, the spinner, the weaver, the printer, the seamstress and the list goes on.
What makes a fashion house unique is its ability to keep its culture intact and truly celebrate collaborative creativity. It is about treasuring variety of skills, valuing every individual’s role and contributions, rather than holding a singular vision.
In today’s age where we are evolving at an unimaginable pace, it is important that our cultural values keep us grounded. This is what is going to keep luxury unique and relevant even after decades.
When we think luxury, sustainability is a factor which should already build in. Luxury is known to use the highest quality of raw material, employ skilled craftsmanship, and their products are supposed to have a long life and often to be passed down from generation to generations.
However, as we play the number game, over-consumption and production have surpassed the innocence of valuing lives and craft over the years.
Now, as the world becomes more aware and demands authenticity, where, luxury should resume playing a part in creating a more sustainable world it has been forever known to set trend in fashion.
