Sustainable Luxury, Beauty & Sport

 Be part of key discussion on Sustainable Luxury 2.0 by booking your place and join the leaders of the growing sustainable luxury community. The audience size will be limited.

Information and registration.

Lausanne, Switzerland

The debate surrounding sustainable luxury is not new, but very prevailing as luxury consumers’ expectations and behaviors evolve rapidly. The traditional definition of luxury as ‘anything unneeded’ is neither helpful nor relevant in today’s markets. Luxury has become both a commendable and widely obtainable need and necessity.  

When it comes to corporate responsibility, luxury companies don’t become model citizens overnight. But merely complying with public demands for responsible practices won’t protect them very long or even contribute to solve social or environmental problems.

But, how to be good and do well ?                           

What do the terms such as ethical consumerism or discerning luxury consumption really tell us about future luxury spending habits? How to go beyond mere compliance to gain a competitive advantage? How best in class luxury companies succeed in their endeavor of changing their stakeholders’ behaviors? How to make a real difference to society in reinventing a new business model? How to future-proof its company and ensure sustained value for all stakeholders ?

The Atelier of Sustainable Excellence™ aims to provide a learning & sharing platform for engaged CSR/Sustainability professionals from the luxury/prestige sectors, academia and non-governemental/not for profit organisations to :

• Anticipate the trends shaping the luxury industry
• Share business initiatives addressing social and environmental challenges.
• Experiment sustainable excellence during a highly interactive “GameShop”.

Provisional program and confirmed speakers.

• Mr Burak Cakmak, GUCCI, CSR Director, Keynote speaker
• Prof. Sandor Czellar, PhD, Marketing Professor, HEC Lausanne University
• Mrs Iris Maria Alexis Van der Veken, Rosy Blue Diamonds, Manager Corporate Affairs. Chair, United Nation Global Compact Network Belgium
• Mrs Corinne Paget-Blanc, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Communication Director
• Mr Christopher H. Cordey, Wholebeauty, Chief Catalyst Officer
• Mrs Veerle Vrolijk-van Wauwe – Transparence SA, CEO
• Powered by LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, participants will build a common vision of the luxury goods industry in 2030. They will test how their  informed understandings of this industry and its interactions with key stakeholders –be they investors, consumers, retailers, environmental activists, or members of supply chains –  shape their future business models. The expected output will be a glimpse into the core values that the luxury goods industry will need to promote, as a whole, to future-proof itself and ensure sustained value for all its stakeholders. This session will be facilitated by Mrs Joyce Miller, PhD and Mr Eli de Friend, Caprese

Program may subject to change. Number of participants will be limited. Registration and inquiries

In a recent conference in Geneva, Adam Werbach, Global CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi S and widely known as one of the foremost experts in sustainability, made some interesting comments on initiatives that he’s conducting with several companies. He defended a position where sustainability is not only about “green products or behaviours” but rather organizing the long-term profit of a company in a responsible way through unstable times. Initiatives related to environmental issues are one aspect of the global picture.

He defined sustainability around 3 core pillars:

- Transparency…or sharing information about the business, the strategy, the activities of a company in order to support problem solving with the outside world.

- Engagement...building collaborative relationships with employees, consumers and customers.

- Network…or using the network of clients, suppliers or other stakeholders to promote and expand effectively sustainability.

We may ask ourselves 2 critical questions:

(1) What will be the expectations of luxury products’ consumers when sustainability takes much more weight in the decision making process for this product category?

(2) How luxury industry could anticipate this trend?

There are already some interesting initiatives which could help to define the critical success factors.

From quality to respect

Genuine luxury is founded on heritage and “savoir faire”. It promotes the value of respect: respect of the raw material, respect of the work and time required to produce the product, respect of the client who’s going to purchase and finally respect of the brand by the client. This drives the quality momentum which is a core component of sustainability. Hermes is a good example of a brand which has kept alive its core values while innovating and expanding its territory.

Luxury brands are more and more available and visible in countries where a significant part of the population lives under the level of poverty. The marketing and communication  approach in such countries is the same as in mature and well developed countries. As a consequence, politicians and regulators are stepping into the game. The mayor of Beijing  banned luxury billboards because advertisement for luxury products “was not conducive to harmony”.

A large number of companies related to gold and diamond have joined the Council for Jewellery Practices to promote responsible initiatives from mining to retailing.

From communication to engagement

Most of global luxury brands have not yet fully achieved their adaptation to new ways consumers expects brands to build relationships with them (transparency and interactivity).

Wetpoint and Altimeter released in July 2009 an Engagement analysis based on the Top 100 Global Brands done every year by Business weeks. The first luxury brand, Gucci, stands at the 31^st position, Rolex 58^th and Cartier 77^th. The first brand of this ranking, Starbucks, demonstrated interesting best practices combining social responsibility, sustainability initiatives and demonstrated engagement with consumers while keeping business profitability on top of its agenda.

Some major luxury brands and companies have initiated Corporate Social Responsibility programs and even for many years.

Louis Vuitton The Carbon Inventory, Eole project…
Tiffany Sources and mining, collaborative efforts, The Tiffany & Co foundation…
PPR Code of business practices, Corporate Foundation for women’s dignity and rights…
Richemont Responsible Jewellery Council, St Lazarus Association (Jaeger Lecoultre)…

However, these programs are not known by the vast majority of their employees in their stores and are not consequently communicated to their clients. A better involvement of employees in contact daily with clients will help these brands to expand the awareness of their programs and contributions.

From pricing to value

Another dimension is the right balance between price and perceived value. Current economy crisis is a catalyst for underlying consumer trends on transparency and quality of products. Some luxury brands have already integrated sustainability as a core component of their value proposition:

Osklen: a Brazilian fashion brands using fabrics and materials selected with an independent NGO and sourced from Brazil.

Linda Loudermilk: a fashion designer considered as a trend setter in a new luxury eco lifestyle.

Tesla: a sport car’s brand powered by electricity

These brands are still small but are building momentum, expertise and credibility on sustainability for the years coming.

Luxury industry is most probably at a tipping point where sustainability may represent for its future what was numeric revolution for argentic based photography. Minolta was a well known, premium and international brand. The brand didn’t anticipate (as many others) this major shift and its consumer behaviour’s implications. Part of the core “savoir-faire” was acquired by Sony and the brand disappeared. Sustainability may not be major decision criteria for the majority of current luxury goods’ consumers. It will be one of the top decision making factors within 5 years to 10 years.There are a lot of fruitful initiatives from which luxury brands could build momentum and quick wins…

There is a future for sustainable luxury brands so why not starting today?

Frédéric Baffou

Fabergé, the world’s most iconic jeweler, is relaunching with the unveiling of its first High Jewellery collection since 1917, in a very different way compared to traditional luxury jewellery brand as Cartier, Bvlgari or Tiffany … Distribution is through a pioneering online flagship store at www.faberge.com, supported by a single retail store in Geneva. Free of any commitment to third party retailers, Fabergé will interact directly with its clientele through its unique online store, which comprises a cost effective and secure platform for global distribution. Great customer relationship in perspective.  Is Fabergé pioneering the « new sustainable way », in sustainable luxury, to please the new ethical HNW luxury consumers ? by Christopher H. Cordey