Auditorium of the Mudec in Milan at its maximum physical capacity, 1,300 pre-registrations and a total of 1,500 total “spectators”, adding up those who reached the Museum of Cultures and those who followed in streaming: these are the numbers of the 14th edition of the Luxury Summit of the Sun 24 Hours. Back in attendance after two authentically hybrid editions – as was the case for many appointments due to Covid – the event dedicated to Italian textile-fashion-accessory (Tma), high-end by definition, focused on the most important theme for the present and future of every person, company, country in the world: sustainability or – to use the more widespread term in the world of finance – ESG (environment, social and governance) criteria.
The risk when it comes to sustainability is to slip into greenwashing (attention to the environment only on the facade) or in the pinkwashing, a neologism that indicates an interest, even in this case only on the facade, for values such as inclusiveness, diversity, equal opportunities, especially gender. And we could add the brand new bluewashing: since water is the blue gold and everyone, on paper, wants to preserve the seas and oceans. There are those who do it seriously and those who, again, only superficially. «It is the first time that the Luxury Summit has been entirely dedicated to sustainability – underlined the director of Sole 24 Ore, Fabio Tamburini as he opened the meeting -. Not because this is the trend, indeed, precisely to go against the trend: sustainability must not be a trend, but a concrete change, to be encouraged every day. As in many other sectors, at Il Sole 24 Ore we are committed to understanding and trying to explain how to go from saying to doing. In luxury, a sector that grew by double digits in 2022 – added Fabio Tamburini – sustainability, which must primarily be economic, also means training and investment in schools that create the craftsmen of the future, who are required to have new skills, manuals and digital too.
The positive trend of 2022, the good start of 2023 and the commitment – theoretical and practical – in sustainability were confirmed by the representatives of three of the main associations of the Italian textile-fashion supply chain: Carlo Capasa and Mario Boselli, respectively president and honorary president of the Italian Chamber of Fashion, Ercole Botto Poala, textile entrepreneur and president of Confindustria Moda, and Sergio Tamborini, managing director of the Ratti group and president of Sistema moda Italia (Smi), the most strictly manufacturing component of Confindustria Moda. The common thread of the speeches – to use the metaphor chosen by Gemma D’Auria, senior partner of McKinsey & Company – was the need to use a microscope and a telescope at the same time: «Every company has to make daily choices regarding ESG criteria and in Italy l he commitment is taken very seriously by those who are listed and by those who are not. Hence the comparison with the microscope, the attention to detail – underlines D’Auria -. But at the same time we need vision and the ability to imagine a different and better future precisely because it is increasingly respectful of the environment, of people and of how a company is managed and organized internally».
Mario Boselli recalled that he coined the expression “beautiful and well done” in the 2000s, precisely to indicate the creative and at the same time manufacturing excellence of Italian companies. «Mario’s intuition is very happy, to which I add the word sustainable», underlined Carlo Capasa, recalling the numerous initiatives of the Chamber of Fashion, which set up working tables on every aspect of sustainability, from the use of products chemists in the supply chain to inclusiveness, from training and support to future stylists to the circular economy.
«Meeting, discussing, looking for solutions and exchanging information is fundamental and even in Italy we are learning to do it, despite the many forms of parochialism – added Ercole Botto Poala -. This is demonstrated by the very birth of Confindustria Moda, in 2018, which brings together the companies associated with Smi, Assopellettieri, Aip, Anfao (eyewear), Assocalzaturifici, Assopellettieri, Federorafi and Unic (tanneries). But a further step is needed: we need to be more present and represented in Brussels, where we have many common interests with France, but divergent ones with most of the northern European countries, where large-scale retailers and chains would like very different rules to those they serve Italian and French high-end companies».