‘Net Zero’ Luxury: Guy Debord, Burberry and the Spectacle of (Hypo)Crisis

Abstract

This article critically analyses the “Net Zero” narrative and its implications for luxury brands. Framing the narrative through Guy Debord’s Theory of the Spectacle, it is argued that a Debordian reading of Net Zero unmasks its fetishistic character, underpinned by abstract values and technical jargon. Using the luxury brand, Burberry, as an illustrative case, the article examines the controversial ‘science’ underpinning the Net Zero agenda and the inconsistencies and complications associated with its adoption by businesses and society as a whole. It is revealed that Burberry’s stated goals (supported by new creations such as the Science-Based Target Initiative or SBTi) are, in fact, a spectacular ‘hypocrisis’ borne out of the illusory exigencies of the Net Zero narrative, underpinned by a calculative economy based upon accreditation of targets and the pursuit of infeasible deadlines. Finally, these findings are critically discussed to demonstrate the nuances of the hypocrisis of Net Zero and their implications for luxury research and practice.

Keywords:

• Net zero
• luxury
• Guy Debord
• Burberry

The failure found in the luxury, not in the hardship

Hypocrisy is the greatest luxury

Raise the double standard

- Michael Franti, rap artist

It’s true that my carbon footprint is absurdly high. For a long time, I have felt guilty about this.

- Bill Gates

Introduction

Post-Covid, “Net Zero” is, arguably, the single biggest issue of our time. The climate policy of the world since 2022 has been focused intensely upon “net-zero emissions.”¹ In 2023, the world’s governments, the biggest corporations and leading brands in virtually every sector in the Western hemisphere appear to beat to an increasingly urgent drumbeat to achieve what appears to be the noble goal of achieving “net zero emissions” in its business operations. The concept is extensively and constantly headlined, most often in the language of catastrophism framed and regurgitated constantly as a moral, political and economic crisis which humanity must not fail to address.²

This article opens up the Net Zero concept to scrutiny in the context of luxury research and practice, inspired by Guy Debord’s concept of the Spectacle³. Specifically, we consider the Net Zero crisis as a spectacular morality tale with particular relevance and importance for the luxury industry; after all, it is easily argued that the ethos and practice of luxury are hardly compatible with saving the planet. On the contrary, luxury is synonymous with excess, profligacy, indulgent waste and extraordinary expenditure. As the French philosopher of transgression, George Bataille argues, every economy has wasteful expenditure built into it: non-productive activities (war, especially), which cannot be used up regardless of the level of capitalist decadence in the economy. Bataille calls this the “accursed share”⁴ of the general economy.

And yet, luxury brands are keen actors in the Net Zero movement. Nowadays, luxury brands focus intensely upon effective communicating their efforts at minimizing their footprint upon the environment⁵ and are at the forefront of the sustainability and climate-saving narratives which currently dominate headlines and the headspace of consumers. The plot takes another twist when the stakes go beyond carbon reduction to carbon elimination, aka Net Zero. In the luxury sector, the deadline for achieving Net Zero is closely aligned with the United Nations’ call for meeting climate targets by 2050⁶. In lockstep with these stated objectives, luxury businesses claim that they want to achieve Net Zero within an extraordinarily tight time frame, joining over 100 regional governments, 800 cities and over 1500 organizations who have pledged to achieve Net Zero earlier than mid-century. There certainly appears to be a “Race to Zero”⁷ campaign to meet Net Zero targets.

Given the urgency of the agenda, the literature is surprisingly sparse on how luxury houses and fashion brands are tackling the Net Zero agenda. Existing literature tends, for the most part, to focus on the actions luxury brands are taking on the agenda rather than on a deeper critique of the contradictions and caveats inherent in the Net Zero narrative. This article poses two questions: What is the nature of the Net Zero narrative? And how are brands managing such a narrative?

Attempting to address these concerns requires both sides of a heated debate about a purported climate crisis to be considered. A balanced account of Net Zero is necessary. Important and marginalized opinions on the issue need to be aired alongside dominant narratives which the public have been exposed to over the past two decades. The science of Net Zero is, moreover, marketed to the public through specific logics and rhetoric which have hitherto not received sufficient scholarly attention.

Inspired by Guy Debord’s theory of the Society of the Spectacle, this article undertakes a novel critique of luxury’s handling of ‘Net Zero’ as an elaborate set of images expressed as targets, deadlines and key performance indicators. It is argued that the achievement of said targets is contingent upon a certain hypocrisis, defined as hypocrisy-within-a-crisis. Although Debord does not analyze hypocrisy at length in his treatise, a close reading of the Society of the Spectacle reveals that hypocrisy is the inescapable result of spectacular crisis management. To demonstrate my argument, I shall draw the illustrative case of the luxury brand Burberry. Burberry is an exemplary case because it is the first luxury brand to commit to Net Zero or, in its own words, to be “climate-positive by 2040.”⁸

Read through a Debordian lens, this article contributes several insights for the politics of luxury research and business. Firstly, it raises critical questions about the Net Zero agenda and its hegemony in the context of the luxury economy by highlighting alternative views which are not commonly aired in the literature. Secondly, by framing the “climate crisis” as a spectacle, this paper introduces a novel approach in how luxury brands attempt to quantify their plans to achieve Net Zero and whether their rhetoric is philosophically and scientifically sound. Relatedly, and finally, it is argued that such an analysis raises serious questions about “Net Zero” hypocrisy in the luxury industry, questions which may have been conveniently swept aside through the lack of legitimate scientific debate and the commodification of “climate change” as a pseudo-crisis.

The rest of this article proceeds as follows. We begin by examining Net Zero and the politics as well as the science underpinning its current status as the pre-eminent crisis of our time. This section then paves the way for a full analysis of Net Zero as a spectacular transformation of a commodity into a totalizing reality mediated by a set of political (rather than moral) relations. Guy Debord’s Theory of the Spectacle is employed in order to demonstrate the mechanisms of Spectacle in the context of Net Zero. Burberry is critically discussed in the light of the theory. The article concludes with envisioning a path forward for luxury brands and luxury research.

Context: Whose Net Zero?

What exactly does Net Zero mean? From a purely technical point of view, Net Zero refers to the removal of carbon emissions. Specifically – according to the World Economic Forum – “net zero emissions means removing an equal amount of CO2 from the atmosphere as we release into it.” The definition immediately raises a number of semantic, practical and epistemological difficulties: what, for example, does “removing CO2” entail and what are the costs involved in doing this? Who does “we” refer to? What does “atmosphere” mean in the context of this political statement? These questions have no easy or simple answers.

Indeed, many researchers recognize that “net zero is much more than a scientific concept or a technically determined target.”⁹ Net Zero is an overarching “frame of reference”¹⁰ which spans “numerous ethical judgements, social concerns, political interests, fairness dimensions, economic considerations and technology transitions that need to be navigated.”¹¹ The scientific basis of Net Zero, in other words, is a political matter as much as it is a technical issue. Put another way, who dictates the terms of Net Zero, defines its parameters and sponsors its growth as a global narrative? In common with many social, political, economic and cultural movements which gain traction globally, there is a story to Net Zero – told by powerful actors.

This particular story may be said to begin with the release of the film, “An Inconvenient Truth” in May 2006. The frontman for the narrative was Al Gore, one-time U.S. Vice-President. According to the film, humanity was facing a catastrophe of global proportions which required urgent, remedial action on the part of everybody. In the nearly two decades since the film was released to critical and commercial acclaim – in the process gifting Al Gore a share of the Nobel Peace Prize with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the situation has, it appears, become almost incomprehensibly more dire. The global messaging on “human-caused climate change” issued by politicians, governments on both the left and the right, NGOs and transnational agencies – chief among these the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and the World Wildlife Fund – have been nothing short of apocalyptic.

Gore warns us in the documentary that:

Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each one of us can make choices to change that with the things we buy, the electricity we use, the cars we drive; we can make choices to bring our individual carbon emissions to zero. The solutions are in our hands, we just have to have the determination to make it happen.¹²

Individual choice aside, Gore is also careful to emphasize that climate change is a universal moral challenge of garguantuan proportions which transcends petty politics:

We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.¹³

Adding fuel to the fire is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guiterrez. According to him, planet Earth and its inhabitants are “gasping for breath” on a burning planet. Even the Pope has weighed in on the issue. The Vatican, he declares, will commit to Net Zero by 2050.

Fast forward nearly two decades and climate change has morphed almost imperceptibly to a narrative called “Net Zero.” In the post Covid-19 era – in lockstep with agendas such as “climate change” and “sustainability” – “Net Zero” has become the defining catchphrase of a generation, generating millions of column inches, changing global policies in virtually every sector of the international economy and spawned entirely new industries, from single-use plastics to insect diets. The script has been further entrenched by the United Nations, embedded in its “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) and heavily supported by other transnational organizations such as the World Wildlife Foundation, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. In the decades since the release of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the message of a climate crisis continues to dominate news headlines all over the world, aided and abetted by leading voices in every sector of the global economy. What, then, is the fuss all about?

Framing Net Zero as “Science”

The narrative gathered momentum with the Paris Agreement of 2015, signed by 196 countries. Under the Paris Agreement, 196 countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 °C and make efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C in order to combat climate change. Between 2015-2017, countries submitted “Climate Action Plans” or “Nationally determined contributions” for achieving the Paris Agreement. Between 2020 and 2021, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) pushed further for greater “climate action” in recognition of the fact that “the window of opportunity was shrinking” for Net Zero to be achieved.

An editorial in Nature Climate Change puts the arguments for Net Zero in the following terms. It is worth quoting in full because it sums up, conveniently for our purposes, the rationale for Net Zero:

Net zero is intrinsically a scientific concept. If the objective is to keep the rise in global average temperatures within certain limits, physics implies that there is a finite budget of carbon dioxide that is allowed into the atmosphere, alongside other greenhouse gases. Beyond this budget, any further release must be balanced by removal into sinks. The acceptable temperature rise is a societal choice, but one informed by climate science. Meeting the 1.5 °C goal with 50% probability translates into a remaining carbon budget of 400– 800GtCO2. Staying within this carbon budget requires CO2 emissions to peak before 2030 and fall to net zero by around 2050.¹⁴

However, the authors insert an important caveat shortly after this statement, stating that “Net Zero is much more than a scientific concept.” They note that it is a concept with a target date, or, in other words, an agenda. It is unclear why “climate science” dictates that a specific target date for reaching Net Zero is logically necessary, but this point is made, nevertheless:

Now climate ambition is increasingly expressed as a specific target date for reaching net-zero emissions, typically linked to the peak temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Almost two-thirds of global emissions and a slightly higher share of global gross domestic product are already covered by net-zero targets.¹⁵

The same point is made by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres in the numerous speeches he gives at climate summits around the world. The language, again, is negatively catastrophic, often framed as a race against time and complacency: “We cannot overstate the urgency of our task,” for instance, now that “fossil fuel interests” are cynically using the war in Ukraine to lock in a high carbon future.”¹⁶ And again, the world “is in a race against time. We cannot afford slow movers, fake movers or any form of greenwashing.”¹⁷

Dissenting voices

If the UN is correct in its view that Net Zero is an overwhelmingly urgent and important priority for the world, then a crucial question needs to be asked with equal urgency: Is the UN completely correct in its assessment of Net Zero?¹⁸ If the UN is asking for a complete transformation of the world economy and the lifestyles of billions of the planet’s inhabitants, then the evidence for such an upheaval needs to be incontrovertible and truly science-based. What, then, is the evidence for such a transformation?

Interestingly, some of the world’s most eminent scientists, physicists and climate researchers are far from convinced that there is a credible case for Net Zero. There is, in fact, significant consensus among these diverse voices that the world is not facing planetary extinction due to human-caused climate change. Scientists who have spoken out, and are continuing to speak out, against the Net Zero narrative include William Happer, the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Emeritus Professor of Physics at Princeton University, Princeton University, Richard S. Lindzen, Professor Emeritus and Professor of Meteorology at MIT from 1983 until he retired in 2013 and John F. Clauser, co-recipient with Anton Aspect and Anton Zeilinger of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2022.

Professor William Happer, for one, has debunked the notion that carbon is a pollutant of the atmosphere. His argument is simple: humans breathe out two lbs of carbon dioxide per day. Simple maths tells us that eight billion humans on earth give out more carbon dioxide than can be pulled out by any technology: thus, concludes Prof. Happer in an interview, “you can call it many things but to call it a pollutant is not fair”¹⁹ because, as his interviewer points out, “the myth of carbon pollution, is, in fact, a myth.”²⁰

In his testimony to Congress in 2010, Prof Happer declared that climate change has been a constant since the 1800s and that global climates have cooled as well as warmed during that period. Happer has since concluded that the narrative of climate change unleashed upon the world over the past few decades is based less on science than on a story spun by scientists who could smell that “a buck could be made”²¹ by spinning the climate change/carbon pollution narrative.

Richard Lindzen, an American atmospheric physicist, Professor Emeritus at MIT and for 10 years (1972-82), the Gordon McKay Professor of Dynamic Meteorology at Harvard University, holds similar views. Having given talks on climate change for over thirty years, he was recently obliged to write that “since this issue fully emerged in public almost thirty years ago—and was instantly incorporated into the catechism of political correctness—there has been a huge increase in government funding of the area, and that funding has been predicated on the premise of climate catastrophism.”²²

Last, but not least, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist, John Clauser, has added his voice to the debate by denying there was a climate emergency. Criticisms of him by mainstream media as a “climate change denier” misses the point, as Toby Young of the Spectator points out:

Advocates of net zero and other measures designed to reduce carbon emissions often use the term ‘climate deniers’ to describe their opponents, thereby persuading themselves that proving them wrong would be easy. But even the most hardened sceptics wouldn’t dispute that average global temperatures have increased in the past 150 years. Rather, the argument is about the role of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, in global warming and how much impact changing our behaviour would have. We also dispute just how catastrophic rising global temperatures are, and are unimpressed by the hyperbole of the environmental lobby (‘global boiling’). In other words, proving us wrong isn’t as straightforward as pointing to temperature data (The Spectator, Aug 19, 2023).

Concurrent with the emergence of independent, expert opinions about the perils of Net Zero is a growing crisis of public opinion. Nor is combustion of fossil fuels a major factor in global warming. Geological history shows us that “there has been no statistically (sic) global warming” when other natural causes are at play, all of which appear to be ignored by the IPCC and its panel of experts. A “doubling C02 from our current value of about 380 ppm to 760 ppm will warm the atmosphere by less than 2 C - and perhaps less if there is negative feedback from water-vapor and clouds,” argues Happer. Richard Lindzen echoes these views, citing common “memes” such as the “Warmest Years on Record” meme, the “Extreme Weather” meme, the sensationalised “Polar Bear” and “Death of Coral Reefs” memes as “patently dishonest” narratives driven by “a huge increase in government funding of the area.”²³

While financial and political incentives are at play, alternative statements and policies on the world’s climate(s) are at risk of subversion and censorship. Powerful interests represented by the IPCC, the Royal Society, the United Nations and other transnational bodies appear to marginalise scientific disagreement on the climate issue.²⁴

In summary, numerous researchers and scientists have, for decades now, established that the theory of fossil fuels, Peak Oil and carbon reduction – all key pillars of the Net Zero narrative – are deeply flawed, even nonsensical – and while the nuances of such arguments are beyond the scope of this article, the reasons for climate change skepticism appear to be valid.

The politics of Net Zero are not hard to find, not any harder, that is, than its pseudo-scientific basis. In 2015, Christiana Figueres, then executive secretary of the UN IPCC, made the startling admission in 2015 in an editorial for Investors Business Daily that “we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” What can such a transformation of “the economic development of the world” possibly mean? Is Figueres hinting at a replacement of the capitalist model itself?

While the theory of Net Zero may stand on shaky ground, however, its practical demands are not so easily waved away. What accounts for its continuing grip upon businesses and consumers’ imaginations? For an answer, we turn to the work of Guy Debord.

Debord and the Spectacle

The notion of crisis – and a sense of catastrophism – permeates the ground-breaking work of Guy Debord (1931-1994).²⁵ His seminal text, The Society of the Spectacle (French: Societe de Spectacle) was published in 1967, followed by Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, published in 1988. Debord identified post-industrial life as a kind of engineered chaos wherein lived experience is an “immense accumulation of spectacles.” A never-ending series of spectacles are regrouped by mass media and other state actors into an artificial unity. Thus, a spectacular society appears fragmented but is, in fact, totalizing; that is, spectacles appear separate from one’s experience and simultaneously as part of that very experience: “It presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a means of unification.”²⁶

A spectacle becomes a visual metaphor for what cannot be lived authentically. It can only be represented as “a social relation between people mediated by images.”²⁷ But this representation is not simply a kind of visual excess appearing through the news, media, entertainment and advertising: it becomes “objective reality.” The supreme irony is that appearing becomes as real as being. To appear to have something is to be that thing itself. For Debord, then, human society is a project of eternal appearing, a project forever in development, never achieved as a goal: “goals are nothing, development is everything.” One is reminded of the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development Goals” – a spectacular self-contradiction!

How does the spectacle play itself out? Debord’s analysis of the preening of ruling classes is ruthless and uncompromising: “The spectacle is the ruling order’s non-stop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise”; it takes cover under “its own fetishistic appearance of pure objectivity…”²⁸ For this operation to succeed, another concept is required. Debord calls it the commodity. A concept familiar to Marxists and proto-Marxists, the commodity takes on a new subtlety form in Debord’s thought. The commodity, according to him, is what gives spectacles a language we can hang on to. Without the commodity, spectacles cannot congeal the slippery fragments of reality into a congealed object for popular consumption and worship.

We have now squared the circle; human-caused climate change is the evanescent commodity which necessitates, underpins and rationalizes the spectacle of Net Zero. This is

… the stage at which the commodity has succeeded in totally colonizing social life. Commodification is not only visible, we no longer see anything else; the world we see is the world of the commodity.²⁹

Thus, the spectacle presents itself as a vast inaccessible reality that can never be questioned. Its sole message is: “What appears is good; what is good appears.”³⁰ The passive acceptance it demands is already effectively imposed by its monopoly of appearances, its manner of appearing without allowing any reply.

The final stage of the (technologized) commodity is its reduction of “everything to quantitative equivalence” in which the spectacle presents itself as a struggle “between illusory qualities designed to generate allegiance to quantitative trivialities.”³¹ Quantitative equivalence is how the commodity turns the “whole planet into a single world market.” When everything can be reduced to quantity rather than quality, society develops distinct forms of persuasion and arguments to fulfil its agenda. Thes three key facets of such an agenda are: (a) incessant technology renewal (b) unanswerable lies and (c) an Eternal Present. These modes of spectacular society will be discussed more fully in the next section but it is worth noting at this point that technological invention carries a dual character in all instances of spectacularization – it sells its usefulness and transparency to the naïve consumer while concealing its essence, that is, the project of unifying and congealing what seems unconnected and random.

With these theoretical foundations in place, a Debordian analysis of the “science” of “climate change” puts luxury studies of Net Zero in a new light. Net Zero, as it turns out, consists of a litany of what Debord calls “unanswerable lies”: fossil fuels currently account for over 80% of the world’s energy needs and yet the narrative of Net Zero would have us believe that renewables would be sufficient to replace fossil fuels in just over two decades; petrol and diesel cars are to be phased out and replaced by electric vehicles when mining the lithium alone required for batteries to power all the world’s cars are already creating an environmental and humanitarian disaster for African labour; birds and marine life are being destroyed on a massive scale by wind turbines promoted as a kind of superior “renewable energy” and, last but certainly not least, the call to erase carbon would simply mean destroying the gas of life upon which all our food supply – and very survival – depends.

In summary, Net Zero is as much a philosophical as it is a scientific concept. The “science surrounding the science” (the latter version peddled by the World Economic Forum) shows that climate change is hardly the catastrophe it is framed as being by some organizations and that, therefore, Net Zero deserves further deconstruction, both as concept and certainly in practice. The efforts of luxury brands to achieve Net Zero must be examined through the theoretical framework outlined above if we are to address the issues laid out in this article. An exemplary case presents itself in the brand, Burberry Plc.

Burberry: Climate Champion or Net Zero Victim?

Founded in 1856 by one Thomas Burberry, Burberry opened its first store in London in 1891 and is now a global luxury par excellence, with an empire spanning fashionwear, cosmetics, handbags, jewellery and fragrances. Its distinctive brown, black and white checked design – made famous by its iconic trenchcoat – has helped it expand across the Americas and Asia throughout the 1990s, made even more famous by the James Bond franchise.

Today, Burberry appears to be one of the fashion industry’s most visible climate champions. As of June 10, 2021, Burberry listed on its website its ambition to become “Climate Positive by 2040.” Previously, in June 2019, Burberry had pledged aggressive targets to achieve a 95% reduction in emissions from their physical stores, office and internal distribution and manufacturing facilities by 2022 compared to 2016, a goal validated by the Science-Based Target Initiative (SBTi). This pledge is one of the most ambitious GHG (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) reduction goals in the luxury industry, setting Burberry against some of the biggest players in the fast fashion sector. Its flagship programme for its “Climate Positive” objectives, “Beyond Burberry” sets out its goals for Net Zero in ambitious language: by pledging to be “climate positive” by 2040, the company say it is “going further than Net Zero targets.” Has it set itself up for climate failure?

Quantitative Equivalence = an Eternal Present

A dizzying array of quantitative measures and performance indicators dominates the narrative in the brand’s annual report (2022/23). According to its website (as of June 10, 2021), Burberry aims to be “climate positive by 2040” by taking the following actions:

• Accelerating its ambition to reduce emissions across its extended supply chain, aiming to reduce them by 46% (from a previous target of 30%) by 2030. This means Burberry’s Science Based Targets will be aligned to the 1.5 °C pathway set out in the Paris Agreement

• Becoming Net-Zero by 2040, 10 years ahead of the 1.5 °C pathway set out in the Paris Agreement

• Accelerating low-carbon future solutions and investing in nature-based projects with carbon benefits that restore and protect natural ecosystems and enhance the livelihoods of global communities through the Burberry Regeneration Fund

The use of the continuous tense is probably not accidental. Notably, “Accelerating” (used twice in the same section) and “becoming” are hopeful verbs without an end-date. Debord would describe them as goals in an Eternal Present. These goals have no anchor (yet) in meaningful action because they are inherently contradictory to the brand’s commitment to exclusivity and rarity.

According to a BBC report on July 19, 2018, Burberry burned over £28.6 million worth of clothes, bags and perfumes in 2017 alone, citing concerns over counterfeiting and theft. This figure brings the total worth of unused goods burned over the previous five years to a staggering £90 million, according to the same report. These figures have led climate activists to accuse the brand of environmental and brand hypocrisy: "Despite their high prices, Burberry shows no respect for their own products and the hard work and natural resources that are used to made them," said Lu Yen Roloff of Greenpeace (in the same report).

Burberry defended its actions at the time by saying that it has “captured the carbon” from burning unwanted goods in an “environmentally friendly” manner, lending credence to Debord’s thesis that spectacles are created out of “struggles between illusory qualities designed to generate fervent allegiance to quantitative trivialities.”³²

The Debordian concept of quantitative equivalence is on full display as well when Burberry commits to removing an amount of carbon equal to the total carbon emissions arising from its business operations. In a classic (tautological) spin upon Debord’s notion of the tautological spectacle, targets are considered ‘science-based’ if they are in line with what the latest climate science deems necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement – limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. That is, targets are what the science says are targets. Science and targets are, thus, the commodities which allow the spectacle of Net Zero to be sustained and magnified beyond the reach of conceptual rigour and practical relevance.

Incessant technology renewal

Adding to the illusory quality of Burberry’s pronouncements on Net Zero is the fact that many of the promises Burberry makes in its publicly available statements appear to rely on technologies which are not clearly specified. For example, the “Burberry Regeneration Fund” aims to “accelerate low-carbon future solutions and invest in nature-based projects” made up of “a portfolio of verified carbon offsetting and insetting projects, which enable it to compensate and store carbon, promote biodiversity, facilitate the restoration of ecosystems, and support the livelihoods of local communities on the frontline.”³³

A key tenet of the Net Zero mission for Burberry is the brand’s continuous efforts to minimize its carbon footprint, a concept which has defied easy definition and methodological precision.³⁴ Carbon offsetting however, is morally problematic. When a company engages in carbon offsetting, it offloads its carbon footprint to projects outside the company so that it is not saddled with inconvenient waste. In theory, a company can then say it has achieved Net Zero without sacrificing its bottom line since it has “compensate(d) for the carbon its value chains produce.” “Carbon insetting,” from this perspective, sounds like yet another piece of chicanery. The earnest explanation given by the World Economic Forum is likely to raise either a chuckle or an eyebrow from any corporate board hoping to gain a clear understanding of the concept: “carbon insetting focuses on doing more good rather than doing less bad within one’s value chain.”³⁵

To complicate the science even further, as mentioned previously, Burberry has declared that it will go beyond net-zero and invest in initiatives to tackle climate change beyond its value chain. Going beyond the value chain raises fresh questions about ethical sourcing and waste disposal. Since the top apparel and footwear manufacturers in the world form formidably long and complex supply chains, the world’s major exporters are also some of the fashion brands’ most important suppliers. Because suppliers serve multiple customers, the latter may find it difficult to steer them towards making commitments which may hurt their bottom line. This is a major problem for brand retailers because the supply chain is usually the largest source of emissions.

What we discover through Debord’s principles is that companies like Burberry eternalize the concept of Net Zero precisely because of their attempts to quantify and measure what is ultimately impossible to calculate or even define. When Burberry claims that its biodiversity strategy is “an ever-evolving project,” it is simply admitting that its Net Zero targets stretch away into an eternal present, always evolving and never achieved. The favoured word is ‘development’ (one is reminded of the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development Goals, also date-stamped as 2030). Vague promises are the result: “In recognition of the fact that the Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN) are still in development and the rapid developments in monitoring and evaluation of nature-based approaches, Burberry plans to evolve its biodiversity strategy as needed to adapt its approach over time.”

Discussion and Implications

This article was driven from the start by two questions: “What is the nature of the Net Zero crisis?” and “How is it being managed by luxury brands”? By delving into some of the controversial science surrounding the Net Zero narrative and further inspired by Debord’s framework of the Spectacle, this article has aimed to highlight the theoretical and practical complexities of the Net Zero narrative and its implications for a luxury brand such as Burberry. Burberry represents an exemplary illustration of the scale and scope of the Net Zero ambition common to many luxury brands. The nature of the Net Zero crisis lies in ever-evolving targets, dates and quantification towards an eternal present which remains elusive. Because targets are overwhelmingly quantitative and inherently contradictory, luxury brands (for all their claims of success in achieving sustainability) may well find that the road to Net Zero is paved with stones and thorns, an ironic echo of Guterres’ scolding rant to companies that they are making empty pledges on the environment which can only mean, as Guterres warns darkly, that we are on “the highway to climate hell.”³⁶

Hence, a philosophy of luxury today must tackle the epistemological and existential crisis of its own hypocrisy, a hypocrisy it both embraces and denies. ‘Crisis’ and ‘hypocrisy’ are a close etymological pairing. Both words are derived from the Greek concepts: “hypo”- (meaning ‘under’) and “krinein” (meaning to decide, to choose, to judge or discriminate). The Greek ‘krìsis’ is found in Latin as crisis. Ipocrisie is “the sin of pretending to virtue or goodness,” from Old French ypocrisie and Latin hypocrisis, acting out a person’s speech and gestures; the same denotation is found in Attic Greek “hypokrisis” acting on the stage; to pretend or play a part or acting out a crisis. Hypocrisy and crisis are thus two branches of the same tree; taken together, ‘hypocrisy’ implies the acting out of behaviour based upon a pretense or deception arising from an inability to decide or choose a course of action or mode of behaviour. Can luxury in fact afford Net Zero or is it simply enacting a state of hypocrisis?

It is time to accept that the fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters and that its rhetoric on sustainability is a far cry from its business models. If we accept that the ‘Net Zero’ agenda is morally and politically driven, then much of the hypo-crises surrounding luxury production and consumption can be much better understood. Unless more honesty and healthy scientific and moral debates enter the public and corporate discourse surrounding the mediatization of ‘Net Zero’ by politicians and unaccountable organizations, the future of luxury under the yoke of Net Zero is set to become more and more politicized, caught in a never-ending quest for higher and higher standards of a calculative economy based on abstract targets and jargon.

In a further sign of an inner crisis, luxury businesses have begun to admit that they are struggling with meeting Net Zero goals, especially since pledges to achieve zero waste is “admirable in theory, but…impossible in reality, given the way the (fashion) industry is set up today.”³⁷ The problem is exacerbated by the constantly changing goalposts, investors’ expectations and fiendishly complex supply chains.³⁸ A change in strategy and approach is clearly needed. Luxury businesses, especially, may want to consider how they frame their own journeys towards a more harmonious, humane, even humorous relationship to the natural world. Attempting to reach net zero also distracts luxury brands from their core value of providing what is rare, exquisite and deeply aspirational to customers.

If the veneer of “science-based targets” fall away, brands and businesses can put in place their own unique signature on their products and services instead of trying to convince consumers of their virtuous commitment to a constellation of abstract goals which may or may not ever be realized. As luxury becomes less about consumption and more about guardianship and stewardship, luxury businesses should focus on safeguarding their intellectual property against the ravages of counterfeiting and modern slavery instead of trying to reach Net Zero. These considerations are not a matter of satisfying some climate narrative founded upon spectacular appearance and quantification.

Examples of unique, locally-oriented, philosophically coherent and morally attractive luxury brands abound and deserve recognition. To name just two examples: MaggieMarilyn³⁹, a New Zealand-based luxury clothing brand and Ace Jewellers⁴⁰, luxury watchmakers based in the Netherlands, both embody an ethos of calm, steady respect for the environment, their partners and customers. Their products are fully traceable, workers are treated with dignity and respect and consumers understand the true cost and value of their clothing. MaggieMarilyn, for example, believe that “when it comes to affecting change you should start with what you know…When you let go of the grow more, buy more, discard more cycle, and find comfort in buy as you need, repair what you can and repurpose what you can’t – that’s when you find a home at MaggieMarilyn.” The company sells unique, local, small-scale products which align with their horticultural, agricultural, climactic origins and roots. Ace Jewellers, along similar lines, has developed brands with a strong focus on local materials, tractable production lines and its unique vision for harmony between product and planet.

Both of these luxury brands are grounded in the understanding that luxury is a by-product of art⁴¹ rather than science. I would go even further to say that luxury is art, art which is inherently, not programmatically, aware of our environment and its fundamental ecological intelligence. While it has been argued that luxury refers as much to a strategy as to a concept, future research can consider how, and whether, the Net Zero narrative fits into a luxury strategy. Luxury goods and services exist to enchant, mystify and seduce and it is the contention of this author that luxury research should expand the repertoire of environmental credentials rather than follow a hegemonic narrative which throws the mystique and inaccessibility of the luxury experience into hypocrisis, as explained above.

Conclusion

An analysis of the dissenting voices surrounding Net Zero lays bare the shaky foundations of the Net Zero narrative; many of its assumptions and claims show that the so-called Net Zero crisis is a crisis of science itself. It is a distortion of scientific facts long-established by credible experts in their field. Utterances such as “Science (distorted essence) tells us that in order to limit the impacts of climate change (fantasy/illusion), we must reach net zero emissions (commodified fetish) by 2050 (pseudo-time born of an Eternal Present)” lay bare the ritualistic nature of Net Zero between globalized businesses and the consumer. Thus, Net Zero is a spectacle of an essentially false relationship; an artificial congealment of the quantitative at the expense of the qualitative, founded upon a set of commodity relations which do not do justice to the demands of a luxury brand. Spectacles are, following Debord, “a vast inaccessible reality” signified by quantitative signs and symbols which are unanchored to the present, let al.one a future. Its very inaccessibility is, perhaps, the reason why brands like Burberry resort to a language of utopianism founded upon questionable scientific premises. Calling, as Net Zero does, for extraordinary measures which mean the end of all carbon-based life on planet Earth, is to expose the essential unreality at the heart of the plan: “The loss of quality that is so evident at every level of spectacular language, from the objects it glorifies to the behaviour it regulates, stems from the basic nature of a production system that shuns reality.”⁴²

The ‘climate crisis’ is not the problem so much as the hypocrisy at the heart of any and every attempt to tackle the apparent crisis. In other words, the climate crisis is a hypo-crisis on a monumental scale: this is the moral crisis few businesses talk about and yet, the stakes for luxury brands could not be higher if their rhetoric fails to meet their targets.

Moving forward, Burberry could do more to shift its corporate story much more firmly to its enviable history of ecological exploration. One wonders, for example, how many of its customers know that Thomas Burberry’s invention of gabardine has changed the face of adventure apparel? In 1893, gabardine was the choice of garb for the explorer Dr Fritjof Nansen on his expedition to the Arctic Circle and Roald Admunsen reached the South Pole in a gabardine outfit made for him by Burberry. Air Commodore Edward Maitland flew to Russia in a hot air balloon wearing gabardine and George Mallory must have been grateful for its rain-proof yet breathable comfort when he attempted to summit Mount Everest in 1924. Hearkening back to its lavish provision of sartorial comfort amidst nature’s terrors is, ultimately, the highest homage the Burberry brand can pay to humanity’s relationship to the planet. Restriction and constraint are the enemies of luxury. A Net Zero economy is no economy at all. Leaving the last word to Bataille, “Woe to those who, to the very end, insist on regulating the movement that exceeds them with the narrow mind of the mechanic who changes a tire.”⁴³

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ming Lim

Ming Lim, Faculty of Business and Law, De Montfort University, Hugh Aston Building, Leicester, LE1 9BH. [email protected]

Notes

1 Fankhauser et al., “The Meaning of Net Zero and How to Get it Right,” 15.

2 Carrington, “Gobsmackingly Bananas: Climate Scientists Stunned by Record-breaking September Heat.”.

3 Debord, Society of the Spectacle.

4 Bataille, The Accursed Share: A Theory of General Economy (Vol. 1).

5 López et al., “Sustainable Strategies I the Luxury Business to Increase Efficiency in Reducing Carbon Footprint.”.

6 IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C.

7 https://racetozero.unfccc.int/.

8 www.burberryplc.com.

9 Fankhauser et al., “The Meaning of Net Zero and How to Get it Right,” 15.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Gore, An Inconvenient Truth.

13 Ibid.

14 Fankhauser et al., “The Meaning of Net Zero and How to Get it Right,” 15.

15 Ibid.

16 Guterres, “‘We Cannot Afford Greenwashing’: Guterres Highlights Role of Net Zero Experts.”.

17 Ibid.

18 Green and Reyes. “The History of Net Zero: Can We Move from Concepts to Practice?”.

19 Happer, “Princeton’s William Happer Explains Why CO2 is Not a Pollutant.”.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Lindzen, “Straight Talk about Climate Change,” 3.

23 Ibid.

24 McGrath, “Dissent Among Scientists Over Key Climate Impact Report.”.

25 Debord, Theory of the Spectacle.

26 Ibid., 1.

27 Ibid., 2.

28 Ibid., 7.

29 Ibid., 15.

30 Ibid., 4.

31 Ibid., 25.

32 Ibid., 25.

33 https://www.Burberryplc.com.

34 Wiedmann and Minx, “A Definition of ‘Carbon Footprint’”, p. 1-11.

35 https://www.weforum.org.

36 Harvey and Carrington, “‘World is on Highway to Climate Hell’: UN Chief Warns at COP27.”.

37 Vogue Business, “Textile Waste in the Desert: The Reality of ‘Zero Waste’ Promises.”.

38 Karaosman, “Behind the Runway: Extending Sustainability in Luxury Fashion Supply Chains.”.

39 https://www.maggiemarilyn.com.

40 https://acejewelers.com.

41 Kapferer, “Abundant Rarity: The Key to Luxury Growth.”.

42 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, 13.

43 Bataille, The Accursed Share: A Theory of General Economy.