Gucci: Making Green the New Normal

At the beginning of June 2010, Italian luxury brand of fashion and leather goods Gucci announced that all of their luxury packaging had been newly designed with FSC Certified paper and is now 100% recyclable.

According to the press release, the then newly designed luxury packaging has undergone a major transformation. The bags, boxes, and tissue paper no longer have plastic laminate surfaces, a commonality in luxury packaging, ribbon and garment bags have been switched from polyester to cotton and the bags provide transparency, reading 'This shopping bag is FSC certified and made of 100% recyclable material.'

The packaging solutions introduced by Gucci feature gold foiling and embossing, creating a high-end finish that allows for the bags and boxes to maintain their luxury cachet and symbolic signs of luxury despite being completely sustainable. In addition to this, Gucci vow Gift boxes will only be given out when requested and shoes will packed in one flannel instead of two.

In an interview with WWD (Women's Wear Daily), PPR (which owns Gucci Group) chairman and chief executive officer François-Henri Pinault made comment on consumers unpreparedness to pay extra for sustainable development:

'If we wait for customers to make sustainable development a condition for purchasing, then nothing will happen. It's as if green products were somehow not normal. They are normal, it is the other products that are not normal. It's up to us to work out how to make green products the new normal.'