Yanyan (Sasha) Wu & Junjie Luan, MBA students at School of Management Fudan University, explore how the Prada Group brings together its people, culture, innovation strategy and operational discipline to crystalize its sustainability strategy.

Yanyan Wu and Junjie Luan are School of Management Fudan University Winners of the CoBS 2026 Case Development Challenge, part of the Advanced International Certificate in Responsible Business Practices. With kind acknowledgements to the Prada Group.

Luxury’s sustainability problem

Luxury has long sold craftsmanship, desirability and permanence. Sustainability, by contrast, was often treated as a constraint: necessary, visible, but secondary to the business of making beautiful things. That logic no longer holds. In a sector facing rising environmental scrutiny, tougher expectations and pressure to justify its social role, the real question is no longer whether luxury should respond. It is whether sustainability can become part of long-term value creation rather than a parallel track of compliance. Prada Group is an instructive case because it approaches that question as a strategic one, not a cosmetic one.

What makes Prada Group interesting is not simply the breadth of its sustainability activity. Many firms can list projects. Prada Group’s distinctiveness lies in treating sustainability as an integrated system across three pillars—Planet, People and Culture—rather than as a loose collection of ESG initiatives. In the company’s own framing, the three pillars guide governance, action and future targets; since 2023, that approach has been supported by a formal three-year action plan and internal KPIs. The shift suggests a move from aspiration to execution.

From visible products to less visible systems

The visible part of Prada Group’s sustainability strategy lies in materials’ innovation. Initiatives such as Prada Re-Nylon and Miu Miu Upcycled make circularity legible to consumers and show that lower-impact approaches can still sit within a luxury proposition. Yet Prada Group does not present Planet as a single flagship story. It frames the pillar as a broader operating agenda combining decarbonisation, renewable energy and electrification, lower-impact raw materials, chemical and water management (with a formalized water stewardship programme), circularity, and traceability across the supply chain.

These efforts contributed to a CDP A- rating in the Climate Change questionnaire for the second consecutive year.

The group also introduced new traceability targets across its raw material supply chain, further strengthening transparency and accountability within its sourcing practices.

In luxury, this matters because sustainability becomes credible only when it reaches the upstream tiers that shape a product’s real footprint. Prada Group’s Planet pillar therefore reflects not only operational discipline, but also the importance of communicating sustainability efforts clearly and credibly to consumers.

Prada and Sustainability: Why people belong at the centre

If Planet is about systems, People is about capability. Luxury goods depend on skill, judgement and continuity; craftsmanship is not an accessory to the business but one of its foundations. Prada Group’s People pillar reflects that logic by linking diversity and inclusion, talent development, craftsmanship preservation, and employee wellbeing as interconnected rather than separate priorities. Inclusive workplaces help talent thrive; training and leadership development support resilience; and craftsmanship remains a living asset only if know-how is passed across generations.

That people-first logic became more visible in 2025. Prada Group marked the 25th anniversary of Prada Group Academy, underscoring its effort to preserve know-how and transmit craft across generations. It also highlighted Gender Equality Certification in Italy, training tied to its global DE&I roadmap, and Top Employer recognition in China. Taken together, these measures show how Prada Group treats human capital as part of long-term competitiveness rather than as a support function sitting outside strategy.

Sustainability & Culture: Not a decoration

Prada Group’s most distinctive move lies in its Culture pillar. The company describes culture as the part of its sustainability strategy closest to its identity. Many firms treat culture as reputational garnish: welcome, visible, and largely peripheral to operations. Prada Group takes a different view. Its position is that long-term change cannot be achieved through operational action alone; it also requires knowledge, awareness, and shifts in consumer mindset.

That logic helps explain why Fondazione Prada, SEA BEYOND, and Forestami Academy matter in this case. They are not merely philanthropic gestures. They are ways of extending sustainability beyond the factory and into education, public discourse, and environmental literacy. SEA BEYOND, launched in 2019 with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, has reached more than 38,000 students worldwide. As of July 2023, 1% of the proceeds from the Prada Group Re-Nylon for SEA BEYOND Collection benefit SEA BEYOND, linking product innovation back to educational impact. In 2025, Prada Group expanded that agenda through a SEA BEYOND Ocean Literacy Centre in Venice, a Multi-Partner Trust Fund connecting people and the ocean, and an educational exhibition centered on ocean preservation at Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai.

As highlighted in a recent Vogue interview, Prada Group CMO and Head of CSR Lorenzo Bertelli makes this logic explicit: if consumer mentalities do not change, behavior will not change either. Prada Group is therefore making a broader claim about luxury. Sustainability is also about contributing through education to this change.

Global framework, local translation

China offers a useful test of whether this model can travel. Prada Group does not appear to communicate sustainability there primarily through abstract ESG language. Instead, it localizes the message through education, community engagement, and culturally grounded experiences. The Ocean & Climate Village exhibition in Qingdao in 2023 included a dedicated China case-study section and local scientific partners. In 2025, Prada Rong Zhai in Shanghai was used as an educational space combining art, ocean literacy, and heritage, while related outreach extended to inland provinces such as Guizhou and Yunnan. The elements resonating most strongly in China appear to be education, community engagement, and the integration of culture, science, and creativity.

That is significant because it shows how a global sustainability framework can remain coherent without becoming generic. Local relevance, in other words, is not a dilution of strategy. It is one of the conditions for impact.

What Prada Group’s sustainability model suggests for luxury

In sustainability, the hardest questions remain: how to scale traceability, how to reconcile growth with resource constraints, and how to sustain consumer change over time. But Prada Group seems to offer a compelling model of responsible leadership. Rather than treating sustainability as an obligation sitting beside the business, Prada Group treats it as a system linking operational discipline, human capability, and cultural influence. For luxury brands, that may be the more durable lesson. The next competitive edge may lie less in saying the right things than in building systems—and stories—that make sustainability credible.

Useful links:

• Read a related article: The Beauty Sector: How it woke up to sustainability and CSR
• Download this and other winning articles from the special issue Global Voice magazine #36
• Discover School of Management Fudan University, Shanghai, China
• Apply for the International MBA at Fudan.

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