Last year, Danish fashion darling Ganni did what for most brands seems impossible. It reduced its absolute carbon emissions by 7 per cent in 2023, according to its latest annual report.
That’s a notable distinction from reducing emissions intensity, which merely means making individual products more efficiently and is the far more common goal, and achievement, that we hear about in fashion. An absolute reduction means a company has reduced its total carbon footprint — a goal that’s essentially in direct conflict with fashion’s business model given its dependence on increasing sales, and thus product volumes, year after year.
Sustainability is good business, advocates like to say. But the real test comes when sustainable measures don’t produce a return on investment. Some brands are proving progress is possible anyway.
The reduction was driven by a shift in material choices as well as changes in transportation, distribution, packaging, product use and end of life. But those changes don’t come easily — most brands have already picked the low-hanging fruit of sustainability, such as reducing energy use within their stores, and the work that remains involves the much harder task of transforming entire supply chains. Here, Ganni has been working directly with suppliers to identify and mitigate key sources of emissions.
Successful sustainability strategies involve more than supply chain collaboration, though — they also demand introspective work. Goals aren’t going to be met if employees throughout the company are not on board with the urgency of meeting them, so brands must do the hard work of embedding sustainability into their internal company culture. This includes the creative team, and finding ways to embed sustainability into the design process from the very start of the product life cycle.
Design meets sustainability
“In the beginning, it was a struggle,” says Ganni’s creative director and co-founder Ditte Reffstrup, speaking with Vogue Business at her Copenhagen home, reflecting on when the brand first started to design with a sustainability-first mindset. Among other things, the sustainability team began to curate a portfolio of materials that the creative team is able to choose from — rather than the design team working with a specific colour or material regardless of whether it can be produced sustainably or not. “Suddenly, and especially the last three years, [the number of alternatives available] has exploded. Now it has become super exciting.”
She gives the example of leather, which Ganni committed to phase out (in its virgin form, recycled leather is OK) because of its disproportionately high carbon footprint. “When we started talking about phasing it out, for the design team, we were a little bit frustrated — you use it forever, it’s an easy fabric to work with, it has this luxury feeling, it has the structure that is easy to make more upscale products.” There were also no good alternatives to work with at the time (around three years ago), she says. The landscape evolved quickly, though. Now, she feels she has an abundance of options to work with. “Suddenly, I felt like we couldn’t even choose. There were so many.”
Chief sustainability officer Lauren Bartley and material innovation lead Julie Verdich explain that they are constantly engaging with the design team on material choices more broadly, whether it’s choosing low-impact versions of a traditional material or working with a new innovation under the brand’s Fabrics of the Future umbrella.
“When we’re speaking with the design team, it’s about not making it technical. It’s really about making it tangible, and keeping it simple,” says Bartley. That led to the brand developing its Fabric Score, an internal tool that ranks materials into one of three categories: ‘preferred and Fabrics of the Future’, ‘better’ and ‘avoid’. The Fabric Score is something that other brands, “especially larger houses”, are increasingly turning to Ganni to ask about.
Near her desk, Verdich keeps a box of materials she wants to find alternatives for, and her workspace is peppered with Fabrics of the Future prototypes that are still being improved or tested for durability — one of the brand’s iconic Bou bags, for example, is made with Celium, a bacterial cellulose-based leather alternative from material innovation startup Polybion. (Ganni co-founder, and Ditte’s husband, Nicolaj Reffstrup clarifies that as a rule, Ganni tries to avoid the phrase “leather alternative”, because they want the materials to stand on their own, valued for their own advantages and disadvantages, and not be compared to or exist in the shadows of real leather.)
Business shifts
The shift required major changes on the business side as well. “You have to agree on a shareholder level that you are willing to invest in an area that’s not providing any immediate return on investment nor is it rewarded directly or indirectly, but your stakeholders in general,” says Nicolaj. After internal lobbying, and some compromises, to align the sustainability and design agendas, he says Ganni’s collections are now constructed from 90-plus per cent certified, recycled, organic or preferred materials.
Some material choices mean the brand takes a hit on its margins, Nicolaj says; that’s a reality the brand has chosen to accept. Extra work, such as the need for increased documentation, is also involved. That’s not a complaint, he says; “it just paints the picture of how broken the system actually is.”
His advice to other brands? “Be aware of analysis paralysis. I understand why so many are waiting for [things like] industry-wide standards and consensus, broader regulatory measures to govern their actions or consumer behaviour to change, but at Ganni, we prefer action over perfection because we literally don’t have time for more talk,” he says. “Carve out your priorities and start your impact there.”
There was also a leadership transition to navigate, as Ganni had a new CEO come aboard in April. Nicolaj says the brand has built-in advantages to ensure sustainability remained at the top of the agenda, but there had to be tactical moves, too.
“My huge advantage in this agenda is being a stakeholder and owner of the company. We have always seen support from our partner L Catterton regarding our responsibility agenda and priorities in this endeavour. That being said, it helps to be able to have a more final say on the topic, helping guide business priorities top down,” he says. “The new appointment of Laura [Du Rusquec as CEO] is a natural continuation of that strategy. If anything, I think she will propel the brand even further in this direction, as she truly values the potential of our positioning within the landscape. And last but not least, I’m still highly involved in the process.”
The sustainability ethos extends to conversations beyond material choices, and in parts of the office that have little to do with product or design. “It’s not only design. It’s also planning, the merchandising department — it’s the whole company,” Bartley adds.
Financial bonuses for employees are tied to carbon-related KPIs. The brand hosts learning and development days for staff to be educated on topics like climate science, for example, and has integrated clear sustainability criteria into its hiring process — choosing people to work with the design team, for example, who are interested in designing with sustainability as a priority rather than who view it as a constraint. In the office kitchen, the screen saver on the coffee machine’s digital menu flashes with messages about the climate impact of its coffee sourcing, and a staff chef cooks daily lunches — with unconsumed food repurposed into other food (she uses leftover bread to make her own pasta) or served for lunch on “leftover Fridays”.
It all adds up to a company-wide shift. And the brand’s responsibility report published in May — indicating that 7 per cent emissions reduction, with an additional drop expected this year because of the brand’s elimination of virgin leather last year — suggests that shift, despite the challenges, is working.
“It’s not only a struggle. I think we need to change that mindset within the industry. Of course there’s a lot of struggle — but there is also opportunity,” says Ditte. And despite the challenges at first, she has come to find this new way of working more satisfying than ever. “It has a purpose, more than just creating beautiful collections. Doing what we are trying to do gives me this extra purpose.”
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