I get asked all the time which brands I think are truly serious about sustainability. The example I always point to is Ganni.
The brand does a lot of important work — they’ve traced their entire supply chain back to the raw materials, and have committed to completely phasing out virgin animal leather, which is a really big move for a brand that sells a lot of footwear. Honestly, there’s tons more to talk about, from recycled leather to extended sizing, but I don’t have the space to go into it all here — sustainability nerds should check out the Responsibility section on ganni.com for the full picture.
But the reason I think Ganni is such an important example is that it’s one of the only sizable brands out there that’s confronting greenhouse gas emissions in a meaningful way. The brand is aiming to halve its total emissions by 2027, which is a very big and ambitious commitment for anyone to make, but what’s really important is how they’re going to do it.
Ganni is aiming to reduce the emissions from the factories that produce its clothes, even though they’re independent businesses that aren’t owned or operated by Ganni. This is a completely new way of approaching emissions and is known as carbon “insetting”.
To get an idea of why it’s such a big deal, we first need to look at how fashion normally deals with its emissions.
Usually, a brand measures its carbon footprint, and then says that by year X they'll be carbon neutral. That’s usually done through offsetting, which means compensating for your carbon footprint by paying for carbon to be reduced somewhere else. The most popular method is through planting trees.
The problem is this doesn't really guarantee that there will actually be less carbon in the atmosphere. Offsets aren't regulated, and there's a lot of shady initiatives out there. Earlier in the year, an investigation by The Guardian claimed that the carbon offsets sold by Verra, one of the world’s largest offsetting companies, are “largely worthless and could make global heating worse.” The report claims that Verra's carbon reduction claims are overstated by 400%. Verra disputes this, but sustainability critics have been suspicious of carbon offsetting for years because of this exact reason: it's hard to tell if they really work (side note: Verra’s clients at the time included Gucci, Disney and Shell — as if an oil company can be somehow carbon neutral).
Fashion loves offsets because they allow brands to say they're carbon neutral without having to tackle their real source of emissions — making clothes. By throwing money into a tree planting scheme, you can say you're carbon neutral and then just carry on with business as usual.
It gets even worse because so many brands play with the numbers to look like they're doing more than they really are. If a brand says "we're carbon neutral in our operations" it sounds impressive, but it really means carbon neutral in the parts of the business that produce the least carbon.
Brands also use “emissions intensity” methodology that measures the footprint per dollar sold, so if your products get more expensive you can say you’re reducing your impact even if your footprint is increasing. Business of Fashion recently pointed to the LVMH group’s annual environmental report, which used emissions intensity to claim the conglomerate’s impact decreased 15%, when total emissions had actually gone up by 16% (the nerve of these luxury guys, honestly).
And this is where Ganni’s commitment is so important. They’re tackling the problem head-on — the goal is to cut the company’s entire footprint in half, with no offsets and no dodgy accounting. The brand is “insetting” its emissions by helping to pay for suppliers' transition to renewable energy, and investing in biodiversity projects that protect their local ecosystems. Basically, putting solar panels on the roofs of factories and rewilding local habitats.
Insetting isn’t the only part of the brand’s emissions strategy — they’re also working with lower impact materials, completely phasing out leather, investing in rental and resell initiatives and reducing the amount of air freight used to transport goods. But insetting is the most significant part of the strategy, because Ganni is doing what so few brands are willing to do: investing in the companies making their clothes.
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