Identifying the Luxury Sustainability Paradox: Three Steps Toward a Solution

Abstract

In this chapter, we argue about a paradox of sustainability in the context of luxury goods and brands: Intuitively, luxury brands should be more sustainable versus normal brands, since consumer’s willingness to pay is high which should allow for highest standards in quality, including sustainability. However, many of the most expensive luxury products appear to exhibit limited sustainability. Examples include sports cars that typically are gas guzzlers, yachts that often carry only a few people but require a high amount of resources to be operated, or fur products that require animals to give their lives for. For example, the Hermes Birkin bag recently received a lot of negative media due to the alleged (mis-)treatment of crocodiles. Hence, albeit a bit counterintuitive, many luxurious products seem less sustainable than they could and probably should these days causing what we call the “Luxury Sustainability Paradox” to surface. In essence, luxury products’ superiority appears to not span across all attributes and, paradoxically, to do so may be very challenging if not impossible. In short: being at the absolute top along certain luxury or performance attributes may, paradoxically, preclude top scores on sustainability.