Marketing for Sustainable Development

2Luxury and Sustainable Development: Companies and the Challenge of Overcoming Consumer Reluctance

Mohamed Akli ACHABOU¹ and Sihem DEKHILI²

¹ IPAG Business School, Paris, France

² CNRS – BETA, University of Strasbourg, France

2.1. Introduction

Can the luxury sector still avoid its environmental and social obligations to society at a time when all other sectors of activity are facing increasing pressure from various stakeholders to tackle the challenges of sustainable development? In addition to strengthened environmental regulations and strong activism from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), consumers have shown a deep concern for societal issues.

It is obvious that, in this context, luxury companies must follow this movement at the risk of receiving blame; they have long been scrutinized because of their significant economic growth. Moreover, this sector has often been the subject of strong criticism linked to social issues. For example, the salespeople at a Gucci store in Shenzhen, China, denounced inhumane working conditions in 2011. The film Blood Diamond, for its part, revealed to the public the impact of the illegal trade of precious stones (destined for Western luxury businesses), in exchange for weapons, in terms of inter-ethnic massacres, notably in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

These controversies around the practices of luxury companies present a significant risk to brand image. A commitment to sustainability could mitigate this risk and be a differentiating factor ...