MILAN — Prada’s commitment to raise awareness of, and promote, more responsible behavior toward the oceans is being expanded.
Marking World Water Day, the Italian luxury company shared updates on the most recent leg of its multiyear “Sea Beyond” educational program jumpstarted in 2019 in partnership with UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
Throughout 2022, the pair will launch initiatives centered on three educational pillars targeting secondary schools; kids aged three to six, and the company’s employees. The project is in line with the Agenda of the United Nations 2030 and 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Catering to international secondary schools in Brazil, China, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, South Africa and the U.K., the educational project, which kicked off in October and is now nearing its end, involved teachers and students for webinars conducted by UNESCO experts to learn more about the Ocean Decade for Sustainable Development, a playbook of the most pressing challenges to be embraced to secure long-term ocean preservation.
Every school received a “Sea Beyond” toolkit made of recycled cardboard, granting access to virtual reality content connected to the initiative.
Earlier this month, Prada and UNESCO launched a competition for the 10 participating schools tasking students to interpret via their chosen media one of the 10 challenges in the Ocean Decade.
The projects will be selected by an international jury chaired by Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group head of corporate social responsibility, and Vladimir Ryabinin, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and assistant director general of UNESCO.
They will be joined by international personalities who have dedicated their talent and careers to saving the oceans. Jury members include photographer and climate artist Enzo Barracco; aquanaut, oceanographic explorer and environmental advocate Fabien Cousteau; marine scientist and social entrepreneur Kerstin Forsberg; environmental influencer and activist Valentina Gottlieb, and Hugo Vau, athlete, ocean explorer and surfer.
The winning projects will be revealed during a dedicated event as part of the UN Ocean Conference, taking place on June 29 in Lisbon and moderated by Brazilian marine activist Patricia Furtado de Mendonça. Prada and UNESCO will bestow three prizes of 5,000 euros, 3,000 euros and 2,000 euros, respectively, to the top three schools to be invested in educational materials.
“On this important day for our planet, let’s remember that sustainability and the preservation of our resources are closely linked to education. Even though it is difficult to find solutions for the climate emergency that surrounds us, only through education and daily small gestures, will we concretely accelerate toward the change we need,” Bertelli said.
Furthering the Sea Beyond initiative’s reach, Prada Group and UNESCO-IOC are also launching the seminal “Kindergarten of the Lagoon” project dedicated to kids aged three to six. The Venice-based educational program centered on the principles of outdoor education will be fully unveiled in the city next May before its start in September.
Prada Group said training of its 13,000-plus employees on ocean-related topics aimed at spreading internal awareness and literacy continues to be carried out on a global scale.
Touting the fruitful collaboration, Ryabinin said: “We communicate the importance of learning about the ocean and ‘walking the talk’ with concrete actions that are science-based and lead to tangible solutions. Investing in ocean literacy will help us shape the next generation of ocean stewards and sustain ocean action into the future.”
Prada has been raising the bar on its sustainability goals, and in January, it appointed two new independent non-executive directors, Pamela Culpepper and Anna Maria Rugarli, selected for their professional background in environmental, social and governance, or ESG.
The appointments also signaled the upcoming establishment of an ESG board committee led by Bertelli, Culpepper and Rugarli tasked with supporting the board in its sustainability assessments and decisions with regards to the three courses of action at the basis of the group’s ESG strategy: people, environment and culture.
The company already publishes a CSR annual report and last year it further committed to corporate social responsibility, reaffirming its objectives and starting a process to measure its carbon footprint after years of investing in the construction, refurbishment and efficiency of the industrial facilities, as well as in photovoltaics and renewable energy.
Prada, which is part of the Fashion Pact, during its Capital Markets Day in November revealed that its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets had been approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative and that its goal was to reach net-zero emissions in 2050.