Sustainable Luxury, Beauty & Sport

Fashion weeks are to the fashion industry what BaselWorld is for the watch industry: The event that will determine your benefits for the entire season. And we recently assisted to changes in the conception of the events. The Portland Fashion Week, which occurred last October, was especially based on sustainable fashion and green concerns.

First report: the logo! Yes, indeed, they mad it… green! The main idea of the event was to promote « eco-responsible fashion ». This is becoming a strong trend within fashion. It is mainly embodied by the idea of designing clothes and collections with natural products. According to Earth Pledge, a non-profit organization committed to support and promote sustainable practices in many areas (fashion, food, construction, waste management), 8′000 chemicals are used to turn raw materials into textiles. In the same way, 25% of the world’s pesticides are used to produce non-organic cotton.

Hence, awareness and responsibility have risen within the fashion industry. The Portland Fashion Week allows us to go further in our understanding of sustainability. This kind of event is important, as it is a very-well exposed scene to advocate change and action. But in order to declare itself a sustainable fashion brand, corporation should go deeper in their innovation strategies.

Let’s take an example of a well-know fashion brand: Hugo Boss. The German Company integrated sustainability and corporate responsibility in its corporate identity at several levels. They implemented a strict CSR strategy all along their production chain. Assessments are conducted both in the company itself and within their suppliers and producers. Goods can be tracked back through each step and location in the supply chain. Such transparency can be implemented within corporations. The NGO Respect Code advocates this kind of practice and helps you increase your responsibility.

However, sustainability should also be implemented with concerns for the environment. Hugo Boss AG holds its headquarters in building equipped with renewable energetic technologies (i.e. thermal lift and solar panels). They increased their logistic capacity in order to reduce waste of energies and ship merchandises by sea as often as possible, instead of by air. The company also campaigns for animal rights, especially against the practice of mulesing, performed on merino sheep. It only purchases wool material from farms that refute such practice.

What else?

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GoodCorporation becomes accredited validator for international transparency scheme

GoodCorporation – www.goodcorporation.com – a responsible business auditing company, working for Total, GDF Suez, Nestlé UK, SME and NGO – has become an accredited validator for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a move that endorses the company’s expertise in non-financial auditing and its in depth knowledge of the extractive industry. GoodCorporation achieved one of the highest scores for its application and has become one of only 14 companies worldwide to be accredited as an EITI validator.

Founded in 2002, the EITI was established to improve the transparency between payments made by extractive industries to countries rich in natural resources.  Many countries rich in oil, gas or minerals under-perform economically, they have a higher incidence of conflict and many suffer from poor governance.  The EITI was founded to encourage greater transparency, stronger accountability and improved governance in order to promote greater economic and political stability.

Countries wishing to achieve Compliant Country Status must register to become an EITI Candidate Country and meet the four sign-up indicators stipulated by the EITI.  A workplan towards transparency is then agreed and a two-year framework imposed.  Within two years a Candidate Country must undergo validation by one of the EITI accredited validators such as GoodCorporation. Once a country is compliant it must undergo validation every five years.

Validation is an essential element of the EITI as an international standard.  It provides an independent assessment of countries implementing the programme and the measures they have taken to achieve compliant status.

Leo Martin, director of GoodCorporation commented; “We are delighted to have been accredited as an EITI validator as we fully endorse and support the EITI.  Transparency is essential for businesses wishing to trade with developing countries and sadly, in many parts of the world this has been hard to achieve.

“Aid, such as the £50bn paid each year by the OECD into developing countries is a great sticking plaster, but it will not lift these countries out of poverty.  We firmly believe that the EITI is the next major step towards the eradication of world poverty as it is a tangible means of ensuring that developing countries, rich in resources, can become economically self-sufficient.  We look forward to working with countries around the world to help them achieve this.”

GoodCorporation is active in Switzerland through its Swiss office here.

For people following our articles, we have been advocating change upon the luxury industry, through a better understanding of market requirements, consumers’ expectations and more important through a greater awareness of the ethical problems the luxury industry’s activities are rising: sustainable sourcing, responsible practices in both the supply and the production chain and moving from Green philanthropy toward effective change, responsibility and accountability.

The new released 32nd HH magazine is proving mentalities are evolving. As we announced on September 27th, the Responsible Jewellery Council released a mining supplement that is now being finalized and that will be effective in January 2010. With the « No Dirty Gold » initiative, luxury brands like Cartier, Piaget or Tiffany & Co are sending a strong message: « We want to change our practices, even if we have to pay gold 15% more than the prize on the market ». By getting their gold in organized, official and legalized mines, with accredited workers and reconstruction plans (which means project for communities, efficient waste management and environmental care), these brands are « somehow » leading the race of « Responsible Excellence ». Congratulations, what about the smaller brands ?

We can only agree with HH magazine editor, Christophe Roulet, when stating that « these changes won’t come efficiently from the outside, they have to be done internally, within the luxury industry and by its main actors: luxury brands ».

At the end of the day, it’s up to the luxury brands’s CEO to impulse and drive more responsibility and accountability within their organisation. But, do they really understand what it is all about and do they foresee the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility on their stakeholders ? Can they afford to wait growing customers’ discomfort while buying a potentially (dirty) gold jewellery with beautîful (bloody) diamonds ?

Christopher H. Cordey contact(at)wholebeauty.ch