The Yoox Net-a-Porter Group has just introduced its new sustainability strategy.
Dubbed “Infinity,” it is a framework comprising 12 targets and benchmarks that the company plans to achieve by 2030. Each target or benchmark reflects one of the United Nations’ 12 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Such SDGs that are reflected include Goal #4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education to Goal #12 of ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Infinity covers a wide range of areas, including Circular Business, Circular Culture, Planet Positive, and People Positive.
The area of Circular Business is centred on the goal of reducing waste in its value chain. This part of the Infinity journey hopes to connect the loops, creating fashion that lasts forever. Specific goals within this area include training their in-house private label teams to incorporate sustainability and circular considerations in their design practices by 2021, establishing a dedicated re-commerce marketing strategy by 2021, and educating and inspiring customers about proper garment care and repair, in an effort to ensure that 20 percent of the brand’s editorial and social media content is focused on sustainability.
Next is Circular Culture, which involves getting over four million customers on board with their sustainability journey. The Yoox Net-a-Porter Group wishes to engage with and educate their customers, as well as their brand partners and employees, about the best sustainable behaviours and habits to adopt. Specific commitments within Circular Culture are already underway. They range from developing a new responsible marketing and editorial framework in 2020 so that sustainability and circularity can be a message included in all campaigns moving forward and mapping out all key touchpoints of the customer experience journey across their online platforms to figure out how best to present the information about sustainable options.
Planet Positive is relatively straightforward. It is the area of Infinity that aims to mitigate negative environmental impact, while simultaneously investing in environmental restoration. With the overall goal of being climate positive, the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group is committed to switching to 100% renewable power in all their owned and operated facilities by the end of 2020 and advancing their sustainable packaging programme by identifying and implementing eco-friendly solutions to reduce the use of virgin materials.
Lastly, Infinity’s People Positive initiatives seek to empower the next generation and foster a positive relationship between themselves and their customers. They intend to champion diversity and break down barriers to access. Commitments include training people, particularly women, in STEM skills, launching a mandatory inclusion training module for all employees by the end of 2020, and enhancing their onboarding process to encourage suppliers and brand partners to share data, allowing them to track diversity through their supply chain, by 2021.
