“Eco should never be a word that conjures
up images of oatmeal-coloured garments
lacking in any sort of luxury or beauty or
detailing or desirability,” says Stella McCartney.
“I don’t think that things have to look ugly
because they’re organic; why can’t they be
beautiful as well? You can’t ask a consumer
to compromise. I don’t think you can say,
‘Here is this jacket that looks terrible but it’s
organic, and here is a really beautiful jacket
that’s cheaper but don’t buy it because it’s not
organic.’ My job is to create beautiful luxurious
things. I love that people come into the store
and don’t even know that something is organic
or in faux leather. That’s the biggest challenge,
having people not notice.”
Brands that don’t commit to a sustainable
future look increasingly like they have missed
the zeitgeist, or worse, like they don’t care or
have something to hide. “Any sort of innovation
is hard but it’s something you cannot ignore,”
says Freya Williams, the CEO of sustainability
agency Futerra. “Although it’s an Everest, it’s
much easier now than it was for the pioneers.
There are so many resources and non-profit
partners you can collaborate with. I often say
to clients, ‘Do you want to be setting the rules
or playing catch-up?’ It’s really important to
look at trends. If you don’t have a slice of the
green products market, you’re not in the race.”
Among major conglomerates, Kering is
currently leading the way. The French luxury
house, which owns illustrious brands such as
Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga,
surprised the world when it voluntarily
surrendered itself to a series of ambitious
sustainability targets in 2012.
Launched to reduce the group’s sizeable
impact on the environment and covering areas
such as carbon dioxide emissions and the way
the company sources gold, leather, and other
animal skins, its sustainability programme was
a bold new step for the fashion industry.
“It is all thanks to (CEO) François-Henri
Pinault, who believes that we not only have an
ethical responsibility to embed sustainability
across our group but that it also just makes
good business sense to do so,” says Marie-Claire
Daveu, Kering’s chief sustainability officer.“Our targets were purposely ambitious. We set
them to be challenging in order to help drive
rapid change inside our company and across
our supply chain. This is because we knew we
couldn’t reach them without collaborating
with our suppliers, our industry peers, NGOs,
and governmental agencies. Although it takes
time, this type of transparent collaboration is
essential to catalyse change across our industry
and beyond.”
Sustainability is now not only an ethical
choice, it’s a fashionable one. But it is worth
remembering that the unwavering commitment
of brands to a green future is not about simple
charity or good PR; it’s also about readying
themselves for an uncertain future.
“In my view, companies that do not embed
sustainability across all their business activities
will not maintain success in years to come,”
says Daveu. “Already, we are seeing the results
of climate change, be it loss of biodiversity or
the degradation of natural resources, and this
will only increase. Business is dependent on
these resources and we all must take action to
become more resilient to address the inevitable.
At Kering, we rely on access to high-quality raw
materials, such as silk and cotton, which are
already being impacted by climate change. The
companies that think of these things now are
the companies that will succeed in the future.”
In other words, go green or go home.TAKING NEW STANCES
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98 philippine tatler. august 2018