Sustainability strategy

far&sound has been supporting Inditex in its strategic sustainability decisions for over ten years. At the end of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, management asked us to design, facilitate, and drive forward a strategic process aimed at reinforcing its global commitment to sustainability, placing impact at the center of the discussion.

From the outset, three essential aspirations were established: completeness (broad perspective, scope), consistency (robust architecture and taxonomy), and ambition (positive impact as a goal, long-term focus, action commensurate with leadership in the sector, collaborative approach).

To ensure the integration of the strategy that emerged as a result of the process, different methodological approaches were adopted. We considered it essential to value the knowledge and experience in sustainability accumulated by the company and its partners, so we adopted an appreciative-generative approach.

We were also clear that the success of the process would depend on the level of co-creation and participation of different perspectives within the company, opting, in the midst of COVID-19, for an online participatory process that brought together 70 people from 13 departments and 9 commercial brands.

Finally, a process of this magnitude can only succeed with the strong support of management, for which governance instruments were designed, including the formation of a steering committee chaired by the CEO, lending solidity and credibility to the process.

In the first phase, nutrition sessions were designed to establish a common understanding of current perspectives on sustainability. Benchmarking of ambition within and outside the sector was also carried out, and experts were invited to provide inspiration and perspectives to enrich the debate on ambition. In the second phase, the vision and architecture of the strategy were co-created, emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive and coherent taxonomy, and ambitious long-term goals were articulated. In the third phase, specialized working groups finalized the commitment by detailing the paths to achieve the defined ambition horizon. In a fourth phase, the architecture and roadmap of the strategy were refined, and both the challenges and the most appropriate organizational structures for undertaking the proposed change in perspective were proposed.

When the process was completed in May 2021, in addition to a renewed sense of common direction and increased ambition, participants demonstrated a high degree of cohesion and team spirit, intangible results that we consider as important as other more quantifiable ones. Because for organizations to embody their strategies, they have to transcend the “whats” and address the “hows”; they have to be, not just do.

For f&s, this process was a profound learning experience that motivates us to continue accompanying ITX in the evolution, integration, and activation of its strategy, thus contributing to a profound transformation of the fashion industry and its impact on the world.