Ganni is proving that a company can grow while reducing its carbon footprint.
In 2023, the Copenhagen-based brand achieved a seven percent absolute reduction in carbon emissions from a 2021 baseline, while the brand has seen an annual growth rate of 18 percent since 2021.
This example of how Ganni is decoupling growth from environmental impact is one of the highlights outlined in the brand’s 2023 responsibility report. Following “Gameplane 2.0,” a strategy Ganni rolled out last year based on B Corp framework, the brand is working toward slashing its carbon footprint in half, scaling its use of preferred materials and investing in the local environments of its suppliers to promote biodiversity.
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Several factors contributed to Ganni’s carbon emissions reduction, including the carbon footprint for purchased materials—which accounts for 60 percent of Ganni’s total carbon footprint—dipping below 2022 and 2021 levels, and a decline in both upstream and downstream transportation.
Virgin leather, organic cotton, recycled polyester and virgin wool are among the highest emission-emitting materials, the report stated. While Ganni is not actively trying to phase out organic cotton or recycled polyester, it did successfully eliminate virgin leather in 2023 from its production. All new styles are designed using recycled leather and “next-gen leather alternatives.”
To achieve this goal, the brand had to discontinue two popular colorways of its Western boot—Cognac and Barbados Cherry—because the pigments could only be replicated with leather alternatives.
To provide alternative fibers the commercial support they need to scale, Ganni launched seven pilots under its Fabrics for the Future initiative in 2023. This included pilots with Ohoskin, Celium, Savian by Biofluff, Modern Synthesis, Algreens Tech, Circulose by Renewcell and Cycora by Ambercycle.
Though garments made with Fabrics for the Future accounted for just one percent of Ganni’s total production in 2023, the brand aims to grow it to 10 percent by 2025. It will launch 11 pilots in 2024.
“Our hope for 2024 is that brands and investors continue to invest in new innovative technologies that have the potential to change the fashion industry for the better. Ganni is 100 percent committed to supporting these initiatives as best we can and showing that they can enable the change the industry so desperately needs,” Lauren Bartley, Ganni’s chief sustainability officer, states in the report.
Circular business models remain a focus for the brand.
After a slow start, Ganni’s repair program with Sojo, a U.K.-based alternations and repair company, is gaining momentum. Thanks to more marketing and several in-store events, Ganni reports that demand increased by an average of 62 percent each month in the second half of the year, totally 365 repairs and alterations in 2023.
Despite the buzz around resale and rental programs, Ganni is running into roadblocks scaling these business models.
The company is “reconsidering” Ganni Repeat, a rental platform launched in 2019, due to the high costs of running it. Rather, it will refocus its attention on rental partners including Hurr and MWHQ in London, Pool Berlin in Germany Studio Pailette in Paris.
“While we see potential in partnering with rental platforms, we are also coming to terms with the fact that driving our own platform is both resource-heavy and costly. We are finding that sites providing a multi-brand experience have more to offer customers than we do, as they also tend to benefit from economies of scale,” the report states.
Ganni is pivoting how it approaches resale after its pilot with the resale platform Reflaunt lacked traction due to it being on a separate URL to Ganni.com. The brand has had better success withthe in-store resale model being trialed at its Postmodern archive store in Copenhagen, however. In 2023, the store sold 1,880 resale products. Ganni is look at how to replicate this success in other markets.
“In 2024, resale will become more of a priority for Ganni,” the report states. “We endeavor to find a workable solution as circular business models are imperative to reaching our 50 percent carbon reduction goal and achieving five percent of annual revenue coming from circular business models.”
