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Shifting design, adjusting profits: Inside Ganni’s sustainability-first business model

Co-founders Ditte and Nicolaj Reffstrup share how the brand overhauled the way it works to put sustainability at the centre.
Ganni Ditte Reffstrup
Photo: Ganni

Last year, Danish fashion darling Ganni did what for most brands seems impossible. It reduced its absolute carbon emissions by 7 per cent in 2023, according to its latest annual report.

That’s a notable distinction from reducing emissions intensity, which merely means making individual products more efficiently and is the far more common goal, and achievement, that we hear about in fashion. An absolute reduction means a company has reduced its total carbon footprint — a goal that’s essentially in direct conflict with fashion’s business model given its dependence on increasing sales, and thus product volumes, year after year.