Sustainable Corporate Spotlight: BURBERRY

Burberry and sustainability?

In this week’s spotlight we are turning all eyes towards an industry which perhaps isn’t the first to come to mind when thinking of CSR initiatives: the luxury industry. We’ll give you a bit of background on why luxury is sometimes seen as an unlikely player when it comes to social responsibility, before delving a little deeper and focusing on the British luxury fashion brand Burberry, to have a look at what actions they are taking to do business responsibly.

LUXURY AND PHILANTROPHY

In the past few years there has been an influx of luxury brands jumping on the charity and philanthropy bandwagon, with innumerable foundations being set up to facilitate giving donations. More often than not this is this under the pretence of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which is why for the most part foundations keep their brand name in the name of the foundation. Such admirable benevolence is often the core of luxury brands CSR efforts however, according to Chris Knop writing for luxurydaily.com such brands are getting a little confused about what CSR actually is. So what is the difference between corporate philanthropy and CSR? In a nutshell, the former is how a company gives its money away, whilst the latter is how a company makes money responsibly, with a commitment to not only society but to all stakeholders (which includes its shareholders).

WHAT IS CSR?

According to the ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Guideline standard, CSR comprises of seven areas: human rights, labor practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues and community involvement and development. On top of this, social responsibility principles are referenced as; accountability, transparency, ethical behaviour, respect for stakeholder interests, respect for rule of law, respect for international norms of behaviour and respect for human rights. Charity is not mentioned once, which brings up an important question; how exactly are luxury companies really being socially responsible, notably towards the environment?

LET’S TAKE A LOOK AT BURBERRY!

 

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Burberry, established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry, is an internationally recognised luxury brand, employing over 6,500 employees and distributing goods worldwide, across 473 stores. It claims to “leverage the energy of its creative thinking culture for positive change” both externally and internally, and claims to have solid core values “To Protect, Explore and Inspire”. This all indicates a responsible way of doing business, but how is this put into practise? Burberry splits its CSR practice into 5 categories: People, Community, Ethical Trade, Environment and Burberry Foundation. As we are Copposium, we are going to take a closer look Burberry’s policy in regards to the environment.

Burberry have, in recent years, been fully committed to being more environmentally friendly, taking into account every step of the supply chain. Burberry’s most critical areas to asses is its carbon emissions, solid waste and packaging materials linked not only to shipping but also to marketing and sales materials. In 2009 Burberry set up a Global Sustainability Committee to help tackle these areas of concern. The committee meets quarterly where every region and function of the business is represented by a Sustainability Leader. These meetings have led to CO2 emissions from Burberry buildings being reduced by 9%, implementing an automated computer shut-down on the worldwide Burberry network to save energy overnight and purchasing 29% of its electricity in the UK from renewable sources. In addition it was decided that wherever possible freight is transported by sea rather than by air. Air travel was also reduced by 10%, with employees turning to video conference calls instead of flying to different countries for meetings.

Burberry has divided its environmentally focused CSR targets into three specific areas which are product targets, process targets and property targets. In terms of product targets the main one concerns sustainable sourcing of materials. Raw materials such as cotton, leather and PVC are the main materials which can have an impact on the environment, with cotton and leather alone accounting for 50% of environmental impacts. What Burberry is doing to combat this is creating programs with the farmers they work with, for example the three year sustainable cotton programme which was launched with 60 farmers in Peru, as well as 70% of accessories leather sourced from certified tanneries.

Process targets are more recent but include everything from helping suppliers to reduce their energy use by up to 20%, switching from paper marketing materials to digital ones and reducing energy use in third party distribution centres by 10% to reducing carbon emissions. notably from air travel as previously mentioned. Lastly property targets concern recycling waste from construction, making sure at least 60% of office products (from stationary to PCs) are sustainably sourced and lastly, a more recent project, using LED bulbs for at least 75% of lighting in stores, all of which have been incorporated and central to Burberry’s new store designs from this year.

What is great about Burberry is that rather than using CSR as another means of marketing its brand, its Global Sustainability Committee really analyses every part of the supply chain to see where they can be doing more to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, in a relatively discreet manner. It shows that it understands that CSR goes much further than philanthropic foundations (which it does also have, under the name of the Burberry Foundation), and is committed making sure the way its business functions on a daily basis has less of an impact on the environment, all whilst making sure it continues to grow commercially.