Sustainable luxury

Consumers are calling for premium brands to employ socially conscious, ethical and eco-friendly practices.

- SHANNON MANUEL

The luxury industry has a less than stellar reputation and is often associated with excessive consumerism and waste, couture and extravagance, guilty pleasures and indulgences. Sustainability conjures words such as environment, climate change, and minimal impact. How can you use two words that mean the opposite of one another in the same sentence?

Well, the concept of ‘sustainable luxury’ has been around for more than a decade. It’s when a premium brand, fashion, hospitality, or otherwise, makes a product sustainable, not when an eco-friendly brand tries to become a luxury one by raising its prices.

Over the past few years, more luxury brands have adopted the concept hoping to attract discernible customers, improve their image, drive innovation and reduce risks associated with climate and ecological breakdown.

Luxury companies, led by fashion houses and brands, have upped their game on matters relating to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG). That could be based on a brand’s internal purpose, activism or numerous surveys that say the luxury consumer cares about the state of our planet.

Gucci is well-known for its activism and being transparent about its supply chains, and Stella McCartney is a longtime campaigner for ethical fashion, eschewing leather and pioneering new biomaterials such as Mylo, a sustainable alternative to leather-made from mycelium.