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Last month, for the first time, Prada invited press to learn about its sustainability efforts. It came on the heels of its latest sustainability report; signs that the company, which has historically been quiet on sustainability, may be ramping up its efforts and is ready to open up about them.
However, the picture that’s emerging is mixed. While Prada Group acknowledges it has much work to do, it has shared few details on how it plans to achieve the goals it’s set. There is potential for progress if changes are made, and some early efforts show it may be moving in the right direction, but it has a significant way to go to catch up with leading industry standards.
Fashion reached several sustainability milestones this year, but there’s growing pressure for the industry to make real progress, not just announce its intentions to do so.
During the press event, which included a tour of the group’s industrial headquarters and logistics hub outside Florence, Lorenzo Bertelli, the group’s head of corporate social responsibility, said he’s proud of the company’s progress to date. Bertelli said Prada has been able to reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse emissions by 34 per cent compared to a 2019 baseline — exceeding the 29.4 per cent target it had set for 2026. He then addressed Scope 3 emissions, which refer to those resulting from sources not directly owned or controlled by the company: “Now, since we are carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions from last year, the biggest objective is to become carbon neutral for Scope 3 emissions.”
However, he did not acknowledge that Scope 3 emissions are where the vast majority of fashion’s emissions are generated — and are far more challenging to address than Scope 1 and 2 precisely because they are outside the company’s direct control — nor did he explain how Prada plans to pursue that goal.
A biodiversity commitment was touted as an achievement, but details were not shared. When asked to comment on what the commitment entailed, Bertelli said only that the group was conducting an assessment of its biodiversity impacts. The group also said it was adopting “circular thinking”, which according to the company’s presentation “is perfectly aligned with the group’s climate and biodiversity commitment”. As examples, Bertelli cited Prada’s Re-Nylon collection and the Re.Crea Consortium, an initiative launched last year with luxury peers including OTB Group, Dolce & Gabbana, Moncler Group and Ermenegildo Zegna Group and support from Italy's chamber of fashion Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana; the goal is to help brands manage end-of-life textiles and, ultimately, be prepared the for extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations that are on the horizon in Europe. He did not elaborate on what else Prada is doing internally to adopt or work towards a circular model.
Later, when asked for more detail on what made him proud of the company’s sustainability efforts, Bertelli was vague. “As a leader in the luxury industry, we feel the responsibility to set a path to decarbonisation in a way that will inspire the entire sector — living up to our purpose of being drivers of change,” he tells Vogue Business (in an email; Prada declined to make him available for a follow-up interview by phone). “Looking at a broader picture, our progress on sustainability also involves further key initiatives like the establishment of a Sustainability Committee to move forward on strategic objectives — such as climate change mitigation and DE&I — and a dedicated operating committee, to ensure ESG topics are embedded at an operational level across the business.”
The Italian luxury group, which brought in €4.2 billion in revenue in 2022 and owns Prada as well as Miu Miu, Church’s and Car Shoe, has been relatively quiet on sustainability. It’s drawn accolades for Re-Nylon, its collection of products made with nylon recycled from fishing nets and other plastic waste that now accounts for 100 per cent of its nylon use, and for its early use of sustainability-linked loans. Other efforts have been slow to emerge, at least publicly. Now, it is starting to play catch up: it was a founding member of the Fashion Pact, has measured its carbon footprint and is expanding its internal sustainability team.
In an industry increasingly focused on sustainability, however, the most advanced companies are now focused on action rather than assessment of issues such as biodiversity, and on advancing initiatives from pilot stage to full-scale implementation in areas such as reducing the impacts of raw material production or water pollution.
The Prada Group’s 2022 sustainability report, released on 31 March, claimed that it weaves “sustainability into everything we do as a business”, but offered little evidence of what that means in practice. Such claims put the company at risk of being criticised, as much of the fashion industry has been, for overpromising and under-delivering on its sustainability goals.
With legislation emerging — particularly in Europe where policymakers have their sights set on supply chain due diligence and a greenwashing crackdown — and more consumers demanding transparency, companies may no longer have a choice when it comes to sharing their sustainability efforts. Opening up about internal practices can be uncomfortable for any company, but what is increasingly clear is that companies tend to fare best when they are honest — not only about what they’re doing to improve, but also their shortcomings and owning, rather than minimising, the areas they still need to work on.
At Prada, a recent hire offers hope that the company may be starting to turn a corner. Chiara Morelli, group director of sustainable operations and product compliance, was brought on in January to accelerate the company’s progress on sustainable operations. Morelli works with Pamela Bussi, group sustainability and social responsibility senior manager, who reports to Bertelli. The sustainability team is made of seven people in all, split between sustainability, operations and compliance.
Previously, Morelli worked in sustainability at Gucci and then at parent company Kering, where her most recent role was senior manager of sustainability for group operations. With significant commitments to and investments in regenerative agriculture, material sourcing and innovation, circularity initiatives and, most recently, absolute emissions reductions, Kering is widely regarded as an industry leader on sustainability. “Thanks to her longstanding expertise in the sector, Chiara’s key focus will be on ensuring the implementation of [Prada] Group’s sustainability strategy in our supply chain in order to reduce the environmental impact of our products and the materials we use,” Bertelli says.
Meeting ambitious goals
Prada Group aims to reduce its absolute Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent by 2029 from a 2019 base year, but the company hasn’t mapped out a plan for how it will achieve that ambitious target, and does not appear to have much momentum on Scope 3 to build on.
Prada says that procurement of raw materials is responsible for more than 70 per cent of its Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions, and that leather accounts for the bulk of its raw material usage. Leather has one of the highest carbon footprints of any material used in fashion, and Prada Group has been increasingly sourcing from Leather Working Group-certified tanneries — but this certification also only covers part of the leather supply chain. It does not extend beyond the tannery stage, and the beginning of the supply chain is where much of leather’s environmental impacts play out. Animal agriculture is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions globally, and its expansion is enabled, in large part, by deforestation — another source of emissions in addition to driving rapid biodiversity loss. Unless brands are rearing cattle themselves, it’s virtually impossible to ensure they are sourcing leather responsibly and without driving further deforestation.
A recent moving of goalposts raises red flags: after failing to meet its goal of 100 per cent Leather Working Group certification by 2023 — it achieved 74 per cent by the end of 2022 — Prada Group “decided to postpone the target to the end of 2024”, the company wrote in its sustainability report.
“We are currently starting a detailed mapping of our supply chain extending to slaughterhouses, and we are working hard with our stakeholders and partners to take the right steps to ensure a significant increase in the transparency of our leather supply chain, and improve procurement standards more in general,” says Bertelli.
The press tour in Tuscany heavily emphasised the group’s strategic focus on rapid time-to-market. Conversations about Prada’s recent hiring announcement, the speed and efficiency at its recently opened Levanella logistics hub and its expanding use of 3D software in the design process all revolved around how Prada strives to own its place in the luxury market.
Looking over a cubicle-filled room inside the Valvigna headquarters, Prada industrial director Massimo Vian explained how the company controls the distribution planning for getting products to more than 600 stores globally. “This is massive firepower to meet the time-to-market objectives we have,” he said. In another room filled with prototypes of dozens of Prada bags, he said that from the point of design approval, it takes two-and-a-half months – three at the most – for bags to reach store shelves.
The need to deliver products quickly all but guarantees they will be shipped by air, when rail and ocean transportation have far smaller greenhouse gas footprints. Bertelli says Prada does not disclose the breakdown of how it ships products, but confirmed the majority is distributed by air.
Asked whether the emphasis on getting products to market quickly creates a conflict with sustainability goals, Bertelli reiterates the claim that Prada puts sustainability at the heart of everything it does as a group. “It is woven into the fabric of our industrial strategy. And that doesn’t mean we need to compromise on producing high-quality products. That has and always will be our priority. We think the two ambitions can live side by side,” he says. “Our vertical integration strategy is not only enabling growth, but it is helping accelerate our progress towards being a more responsible business while being agile and fast. We cannot afford not to work on both aspects.”
Vertical integration
Vertical integration has always been a core operating principle for Prada, and the company cites this approach to production as a sustainability highlight because it ensures control of operations and “especially in terms of responsible supply chain management”.
While vertical integration offers companies more control over their production, it does not inherently increase or prioritise sustainability. Asked what practices Prada implements at company-owned facilities that might not be standard elsewhere, Bertelli responds, “Our factories perfectly embody our approach to sustainability. They represent our focus on the key three pillars of our sustainability strategy: people, planet and culture.” He points to the successful reduction of Scope 1 and 2 emissions, achieved by converting its heating systems to electric power, as an example; and the recent announcement that it will hire 400 new people, including about 200 trained in the Prada Group Academy, as another. “We can help drive sustainable practices through this training and invest in people, skills and technical know-how for the long-term.”
The group also acquired a 43.65 per cent stake in Italy’s Conceria Superior tannery last year. What kinds of changes is Prada making, or planning to make, there now that it has an ownership stake? Bertelli says: “We acquired a significant stake in Superior just eight months ago, in August 2022, and we are working closely and intensively with this partner to reduce their environmental footprint.”
With Morelli on board, Prada says it is gearing up to act faster. The group plans to “formalise” its Scope 3 action plan this year, develop a biodiversity strategy, reduce its use of harmful chemicals and improve its raw materials procurement, as well as to engage with its biggest suppliers and scout industry initiatives to potentially sign on with. In her first month, Morelli developed a roadmap for action that was approved by the group’s sustainability committee. Prada says board members were “amazed” by her vision and ambition.
“We are aware that there is still much to do to achieve our goals, which are constantly evolving to align to the growing expectations of our stakeholders,” Bertelli says. “I am pleased that in the past few years we have continued to challenge ourselves and made excellent progress.”
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