CSR in the Fashion Industry

About a week ago, I posted a little study I conducted examining the state of CSR programs in luxury department stores. My findings: there are none! Luxury department stores don't see a need to invest in sustainability yet.

But as one reader commented, many luxury BRANDS feel otherwise. Her observation was corroborated by a WSJ article (see "Luxury-Goods Makers Brandish Green Credentials", 7/2/09) about the growth of green among luxury brands, and focused in particular on what PPR (owner of Gucci Group, which in turn is owner of brands including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Stella McCartney) and LVMH (owner of Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, and Donna Karan, among others) were doing sustainability-wise. Apparently, PPR does quite a bit, among other things integrating sustainability targets into the criteria for executive bonuses. Although the article itself made LVMH's program sound comparatively cosmetic (it cited an ad campaign featuring Andre Agassi, Keith Richards, and Buzz Aldrin, all of whom have donated at least part of their modeling fees to Al Gore's Climate Project!), some further investigation revealed that LVMH has an Environmental Affairs Department that "works every day to spread the special culture of the environmental impact assessment, coordinates actions and encourages all of our subsidiaries to adopt the 'best ecological practices' at all levels of production." Plus, it has been a Global Compact participant since 2003.

So should we infer from this that luxury goods executives have better hearts than the luxury department store executives who purchase their goods? Certainly not! While department stores (at least for the time being) can remain blissfully distant from the problems associated with the goods they carry, luxury brands cannot afford to throw caution to the wind. Articles on poor working conditions and environmental degradation cast a layer of dust over an otherwise shiny (and expensive) item. For luxury goods manufacturers, CSR is self-preservation.