Benefits
Companies in the high-end or luxury sectors are important for helping society achieve sustainable production and consumption overall because:
- they have the margins and business models to be able to innovate new sustainable and responsible approaches that can prefigure what is possible for the mainstream;
- they communicate powerfully and aspirationally with people worldwide, including the burgeoning consumer middle classes, and decision making elites, of Emerging Nations;
- although they can be wasteful, damaging and socially divisive if not attending to their social and environmental responsibilities, they can embody and promote a value shift in the way people relate to products and services.
Industry executives and experts can benefit from collaboration to:
- achieve a clearer understanding of issues of corporate responsibility for sustainable development;
- encourage an industry shift towards more responsible and sustainable practices;
- share innovations and knowledge of best practice, achieve efficiencies with the cost of improvements, and influence relevant standards and rules;
- promote consumer awareness and the ease of purchase of more sustainable options in high end sectors;
- gain recognition and generate credibility for industry efforts.
Our mission and principles and work programmes are targeted at enabling participants
in the ALA to achieve these benefits collaboration.