Burberry ends practice of destroying unsaleable products

This commitment builds on the goals that we set last year as part of our five-year responsibility agenda and is supported by our new strategy, which is helping tackle the causes of waste. We already reuse, repair, donate or recycle unsaleable products and we will continue to expand these efforts.

At Burberry, we are passionate about driving positive change. Our responsibility goals cover the entire footprint of our operations and extend to the communities around us. In May 2018, we became a core partner of the Make Fashion Circular Initiative convened by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. In the past year, we have created a unique partnership with sustainable luxury company Elvis & Kresse to transform 120 tonnes of leather offcuts into new products over the next five years. We have also supported the Burberry Foundation in establishing the Burberry Material Futures Research Group with the Royal College of Art to invent new sustainable materials. We continue to invest in communities, from supporting young people in disadvantaged areas of London and Yorkshire, to developing a more inclusive and sustainable cashmere industry in Afghanistan. These efforts have been recognised by Burberry’s inclusion in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for the third consecutive year.

Burberry also confirms it will no longer use real fur. There will be no real fur in Riccardo Tisci’s debut collection for Burberry later this month, and we will phase out existing real fur products.

Marco Gobbetti, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Modern luxury means being socially and environmentally responsible. This belief is core to us at Burberry and key to our long-term success. We are committed to applying the same creativity to all parts of Burberry as we do to our products.”

Contacts:

Media
Andrew Roberts, VP Corporate Relations +44(0)7976971881

Investor Relations
Charlotte Cowley, VP Investor Relations +44(0)2033673234

Notes for editors

To respect regulatory constraints, in exceptional circumstances, we may dispose of damaged, defective or expired beauty products where recycling is not an option.  We will continue to explore methods of recycling or reusing such products within the regulatory constraints.

The use of real fur by Burberry has been restricted for many years to rabbit, fox, mink and Asiatic racoon. Going forward, these and Angora will be banned.

Launched in 2017, Burberry’s Responsibility agenda to 2022, focuses on three goals:

• Drive positive change through 100% of Burberry’s products
• Become carbon neutral, revalue waste
• Positively impact one million people

Burberry made progress against each of these in 2017/18, including:

• We procured 21 percent of our cotton through the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which focuses on reducing the environmental impact of cotton production and improving economic development in cotton producing areas. Our goal is to procure 100 percent of our cotton through the BCI by 2022
• We are more than a third of the way to our goal of becoming carbon neutral in our own operations. We are also helping our supply-chain partners cut their water and energy consumption, with a third of those participating in a programme we developed achieving a reduction in 2017
• Through the Burberry Foundation, we are working with Teach First and the Careers and Enterprise company to support young people in disadvantaged communities in London and Yorkshire
• The Foundation also partnered with Oxfam in Italy to support community cohesion and in Afghanistan to develop a more inclusive and sustainable cashmere industry
• Burberry has also established ground-breaking partnerships to support and accelerate innovation and sustainable business practices
• Through the Burberry Foundation, we are working with sustainable luxury company Elvis & Kresse to transform at least 120 tonnes of leather off-cuts from the production of Burberry products into a range of accessories and homeware over the next five years. Half of the profits from this will be donated to charitable causes focused on renewable energy
• The Burberry Material Futures Research Group at the Royal College of Art is focused on inventing new sustainable materials, transforming the customer experience and advancing manufacturing
• We are a core partner of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Make Fashion Circular Initiative to champion the vision for a circular economy and phase out negative impacts of the fashion and textile industry

Find out more about our agenda at www.burberryplc.com/impact