Ganni’s latest sustainability report spotlights its reduced emissions and underscores the urgent need for collective fashion industry reform.
Ganni has officially crossed the halfway point in its mission to halve carbon emissions by 2027. As of 2024, the Danish fashion label has reduced its absolute carbon output by 24 percent from its 2021 baseline, with product emissions alone dropping by 28 percent — an achievement largely driven by its decision to phase out virgin leather.
The label’s updated sustainability roadmap, dubbed GAMEPLAN 2.0, details its progress across four primary focus areas: carbon reduction, material innovation, wage equity, and circular systems. The report also includes an acknowledgment of the fashion industry’s larger structural hurdles — from weak funding for early-stage technologies to inconsistent regulatory frameworks. “We are fully committed to doing our part, but the path forward demands collective action,” Chief Sustainability Officer Lauren Bartley noted in its latest report.
Ganni remains among the minority of mid-size fashion brands holding active B Corp certification, which it plans to renew. And while its progress is measured and ongoing, its ambitions are rooted in a philosophy that avoids performative perfectionism. “At Ganni, we’ve never claimed to be perfect, and we’re not trying to be,” reads a message in the report. “But we are committed to showing up, taking action, and challenging the way things have always been done.”
Ganni’s decision to eliminate virgin leather from its collections marks one of the most significant strategic shifts in its decarbonization effort. The brand states that product emissions account for nearly 70 percent of its total carbon footprint. By moving away from virgin leather, Ganni cut product-related emissions by more than one quarter, underscoring how material sourcing remains one of the most effective levers for change within apparel.
That shift was coupled with the commercial expansion of its Fabric of the Future program. Ganni increased its usage of innovative materials from one to five commercialized fabric innovations in 2024 alone. These partnerships span multiple early-stage companies and technologies working on lower-impact alternatives to conventional synthetics and animal-based fibers.
However, Ganni acknowledges that the fabric innovation pipeline remains precarious. “Much of what we’re building relies on early-stage technologies, developing infrastructure, and systems still in their infancy. It’s a dynamic space, full of potential, but still fragile,” the brand shares.
This emphasis on experimental infrastructure underpins Ganni’s collaborative stance. In 2024, it published The Ganni Playbook: How to Get Started Creating a Responsible Business, a practical guide for fashion brands seeking to implement similar sustainability strategies. The document reflects Ganni’s belief that “shared progress is the only way forward.”
Still, sustainability at Ganni extends beyond materials and carbon calculations. Inside the company, 23 employees across 16 departments form the Carbon Squad — a cross-functional group responsible for embedding climate thinking into daily decisions. The team acts as an internal education hub, offering employees across disciplines opportunities to build fluency in sustainability metrics, decarbonization strategies, and impact tracking.
Externally, the brand has made progress on its Living Wage Initiative. As of 2024, 63 percent of its contracted suppliers are verified as paying a living wage. That figure includes 43 percent that onboarded through Ganni’s program, and an additional 20 percent that already meet or exceed regional wage benchmarks through collective bargaining or other internal structures. The remaining 37 percent of suppliers are under review in advance of the company’s 2025 target to reach one hundred percent living wage compliance.
Ganni has also begun shifting its supply chain energy inputs. Four of its supplier facilities — two in Portugal and two in Italy — now operate with on-site solar panels installed through Ganni’s carbon-insetting efforts. This transition to renewable energy at the production level signals another step in the brand’s broader plan to decouple business growth from emissions growth.
As with many fashion brands navigating climate pledges and stakeholder expectations, Ganni’s public transparency around financial investment also reflects its willingness to move beyond symbolic gestures. In 2024, the company spent 0.68 percent of its annual revenue on responsibility initiatives, up from 0.60 percent in 2023. While the figure remains under one percent, it exceeds what most mid-size fashion brands publicly report, offering at least some benchmark for peers.
Ganni’s work does not unfold in a vacuum. The brand’s leaders frequently return to a central premise: change at scale requires shared responsibility. “We recognise that the scale of change needed in the fashion industry can’t be achieved by one brand alone,” Bartley says. “The challenges are significant, and we cannot solve them in isolation. Achieving real, lasting impact will require industry-wide collaboration, particularly in aligning sustainability priorities and accelerating innovation.”
The company’s sustainability narrative — while clearly promotional in some respects — resists the industry-wide tendency toward absolutes. The report consistently points to systems thinking, economic gaps, and the realities of scaling materials with limited infrastructure. “There’s no perfect roadmap, but we’re here to do the work, one bold step at a time,” it states.
In the absence of a clear global framework for decarbonizing fashion, Ganni’s modular approach to its own sustainability roadmap may serve as a reference for other labels navigating similar terrain. While its methods remain imperfect, the structure of its public reporting, and its willingness to acknowledge uncertainty, reflect a shift in what leadership can look like inside a fragmented industry. “Now is the time to step up, collaborate, and drive the change the industry urgently needs,” Bartley said.
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