Gisele Bundchen Enhances CSR Efforts

I've been writing a lot of heavy CSR posts recently, so thought it was time to blog about something sexier: Gisele Bundchen's newfound obsession with the environment! It's all over CSRwire and Treehugger these days: the supermodel is now UN Ambassador for Environmental Affairs, has her own "green blog" (in Portuguese), has her own flip flop line, and is doing a lot of photo shoots having to do with nature. If you want to see what Gisele's passion looks like, google "Gisele Bundchen water dress". It's awesome.

Admittedly, green is sexy these days (with or without supermodel endorsement), which is why being an environmental ambassador is good business for Gisele. But is this trend good for the planet itself? On one hand, we've seen in some of my previous blog posts that there is limited evidence that consumers of luxury fashion care about sustainability. Making them care more could spur the market for sustainable goods, and that would be, well, good.

But let's talk about fads. An ongoing concern is whether sustainability is sustainable. Does green being of the moment mean that it will be terribly passe five years from now? That would be a catastrophe. On the other hand, if Gisele's actions do somehow raise awareness among the fashion-minded of the actual SUBSTANCE behind this ethereal "green" word we bat around so often, then she will indeed have done a real public service.

So coming back to our key point, what does this mean for CSR? That all depends on what you believe about the influence of celebrity messaging. Celebrities get attention (hence this post!), but can they actually change the way consumers spend their money and, in turn, what products retailers seek to carry?

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