WWF Urges Celebrities Not To Support Dirty Luxury Brands

Wants support of green products front and center

November 30th 2007

green-issue.jpgThe World Wildlife Federation released a new report today called “Deeper Luxury” that examines the environmental and social record of some of the world’s top brands, including L’Oréal, Hermès, Tods, Tiffany & Co and Swatch, and asks that celebrities should not promote or endorse environmentally damaging products.

The report takes a look at the top ten luxury brands and grades them according to sustainability and impressions from the media and NGOs. As expected, none of these companies scored well, with L’Oréal receiving the highest of C+. From the release,

“Anthony Kleanthous, Senior Policy Adviser for WWF, said: “This report is a call to action for the world’s top brands to improve the way they do business. Luxury companies must do more to justify their value in an increasingly resource-constrained and unequal world. Despite strong commercial drivers for greater sustainability, luxury brands have been slow to recognize their responsibilities and opportunities. We call upon the luxury industry to bring to life a new definition of luxury, with deeper values expressed through social and environmental excellence. Their performance and progress on environmental, social and governance issues should be comprehensively measured and reported.”

As part of the report, the WWF has also included a “Star Charter” that lists off six principals celebrities should use when exploring what brands to endorse. Two of these include considering the social and environmental performance of companies and attaining independent expert advice on that performance before endorsing companies. Think they’ll bite?

2 Responses to “WWF Urges Celebrities Not To Support Dirty Luxury Brands”

  1. You can see whether they are biting or not at http://www.starcharter.net

    One of the coauthors of the report has also set up a social network for people in the luxury industry who are leading change, at
    http://www.authenticluxury.net

  2. Recently the fur industry as tried to promote fur as “green” so I think it’s interesting that a number of the companies criticized by WWF are leather companies and fashion houses like Gucci that use lots of real fur.

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