The Four Hundred: Luxury retailer Prada continues sustainable practices

Prada

The fashion industry is making waves in sustainability, quite literally.

In February 2020, luxury retailer Prada announced its partnership with UNESCO, The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for its ‘Sea Beyond’ sustainability campaign. 

The campaign's goal was to educate about ocean sustainability and circular economy amongst secondary schools through an educational program consisting of multiple webinars and a final assignment to create an awareness campaign about preserving the ocean. 

Schools worldwide, including Berlin, Lisbon, Milan, Shanghai, and more, we're given a 'Sea Beyond' kit to help foster creativity in each schools' mission to create the best campaign.

The program recently celebrated its completion on March 26 with a virtual event awarding the last assignment's winning school for 'Sea Beyond.'

A school in Lisbon ended up snagging the main prize with their stop-motion video, "Circular Nets: A Sea of Plastic," presenting the fact that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish and a solution to recycling the plastic. Recycled materials like plastic and cardboard created the whole video. 

The Portuguese school Agrupamento de Escolas de Vialonga won the competition and was awarded $5,000, and a king-sized spool of Prada's 'Re-Nylon' yarn was their trophy. 

'Re-Nylon' was an initiative by Prada to move towards a more sustainable way of creating their luxury designs. Prada partnered with textile yarn producer Aquafil to create their 100% recycled nylon yarn from plastic waste collected from the ocean, including fishing nets and textile fiber waste.

In Prada’s ‘Re-Nylon’ press release, Prada’s Group Head of Marketing and Communication Lorenzo Bertelli said, “Our ultimate goal will be to convert all Prada virgin nylon into Re-Nylon by the end of 2021. . .This project highlights our continued efforts towards promoting a responsible business. This collection will allow us to make our contribution and create products without using new resources.” 

Prada’s move towards sustainable fashion combats the longtime waste that the fashion industry contributes to ocean pollution. 

According to Common Objective, a business network for the fashion industry, more than a third of microplastics in the world’s oceans are from synthetic textiles. 

Polyester was found to be the significant synthetic fiber shedding microplastics at a rate of six times more than the fibers of nylon. These fibers accumulate in marine habitats and eventually end back up in the human food chain. 

By creating clothing, fabric, and fibers from other recycled clothing, the oceans can benefit from less waste accumulated ever since the beginning of disposable fashion production. 

And the focus on ocean preservation has been gaining immediate attention in trending media again in the Netflix documentary Seaspiracy that documents the dangers that sealife face when humans become careless with their waste and management of the ocean. 

Though the documentary presents some bloated statistics for shock-value, it does not steer away from the otherwise valid malpractices going on within the industry and how multiple sources, such as the fashion industry, contribute to the overall decline of the thriving oceanic population. 

Celebrities and climate activists went to Twitter to voice their support for the documentary produced by Kip Anderson, the producer behind Cowspiracy and What the Health. With the popularity, Seaspiracy’s Instagram account now has 470K followers and growing. 

Prada is a luxury designer making waves for the sustainability movement, with their products switching from non-biodegradable nylon to their Econyl ‘Re-Nylon,’ for every 10,000 tons of recycled nylon produced, around 70,000 barrels of petroleum have been saved and 65,1000 tons of carbon emissions have been reduced. 

This is not Prada’s first enterprise with sustainability and animal cruelty-free initiatives. In March 2019, Prada pledged to join the FFA, Fur Free Alliance, starting with their Spring-Summer 2020 Women’s collection. 

However, according to the Fashion Transparency Index 2020 report, Prada fell into the 11-20% transparency column, meaning that the brand is most likely not publishing or sharing information about the index judges’ categories. 

These categories include: gender equality, living wages, circularity, overproduction, sustainability, microplastics, deforestation, climate change and water use. 

They describe the Index to “Incentivise major brands and retailers to disclose a greater level of credible, comparable and detailed information year-on-year by leveraging their competitive tendencies.”

In their findings, only 20 brands fell under the above 50% transparency category. Some of these brands include Adidas, Nike, Timberland, ASOS, and the highest percentage transparency was from H&M. 

Transparency is vital for fashion companies because more consumers want trust between them and the brand they are buying from, explains the Fashion Transparency Index. By consumers making informed decisions about the products and who they are buying from, it can damage a brands’ reputation if not transparent. 

It is apparent that the fashion industry has much work to do in moving towards sustainability and cruelty-free production, but with the small steps such as those that Prada is taking, the world’s ecosystem may see a better partnership with the fashion industry.