E4S (EPFL, IMD, UNIL-HEC) & OriginAll call on all luxury stakeholders to join this academic-led research project: The Luxury Transparency and Traceability Index

LAUSANNE, VAUD, SWITZERLAND, December 13, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Enterprise for Society Center (E4S), the joint venture of the University of Lausanne with HEC Lausanne, IMD and EPFL has partnered with tech company OriginAll to collaborate on the world first public-private partnership, led by Academia, measuring transparency and traceability initiatives across luxury sectors with a focus on technologies providing enhanced product security and product data.

“THE INDEX aims at becoming a sustainable source of verified information, ultimately becoming a reference for the luxury industries, technology partners and consumers driving them towards improved responsible best-practices and usage of transparency technologies. We are thankful to all stakeholders supporting our efforts to spread more transparency across this industry and empowering consumers to make better and safer choices.” Margot Stuart, COO & co-founder of OriginAll.

The luxury industry has been impacted by the evolution of consumption behavior powered with technology.
Today, advanced technology from artificial intelligence to unique product traceability solutions to IoT, are used by luxury power houses to refine their marketing strategies and enhance their customer experience. While
enhancing transparency is an important business issue for luxury brands, it is also a sustainability concern.
Indeed, production of fake goods often takes place in unregulated environments, which include workforce
exploitation, child labor and polluting materials and machinery. Moreover, responding to consumer concerns
requires transparency on all dimensions of sustainability.

“One of the challenges for luxury brands in the age of positive impact sustainability, is how much they should disclose and how much they shouldn’t to protect the luxury mystique. THE INDEX can help them understand better the impact of their transparency initiatives on consumers’ perception. Hence, our call to all luxury stakeholders, whether they are brands, technology providers, associations, or consultants, to support this important initiative by sharing their information on our data collection portal” Stéphane J.G. Girod, Professor of Strategy and Organizational Innovation at IMD.

“The conflicting notions of luxury, self-enhancement, and status with those of sustainability, self-transcendence and pro-sociality is one of the biggest dilemmas facing luxury brands today. I am convinced that we are paving the way for the luxury industries to make important governance and best practice changes by implementing the learnings and findings THE INDEX will reveal.” Felicitas Morhart, Professor of Marketing, Founder of the Swiss Center for Luxury Research (UNIL, HEC)

Breitling (Switzerland), ID Genève Watches (Switzerland), SMCG Wines (South Africa), Authentic Vision (Aus-tria) and Movo Partners (Switzerland) are amongst the first supporters of this academic-led research project. They have dutifully created an account on the index’s portal and answered the online survey and self-assessment (transparency keywords and UN SDG) which will allow researchers to apply their developed methodology to provide meaningful data analysis in the upcoming launch of the Index’s 1st edition by the end of Q3 2023.

We invite luxury brands, technology providers and contributors to the luxury industries to join this unique academic-led initiative and collaborate with E4S and OriginAll by allowing our researchers to take a deep dive into their contributions towards ensuring more transparency to the end-consumers as well as their commitment to sustainability.

e4s-originall-luxury.org

“Breitling is committed to doing our best to optimize the social and environmental impacts of our business within our sphere of influence while enabling product integrity and traceability along the value chain. We very much support this academic-led initiative and look forward to discovering the insights THE INDEX will pro-vide to further help inform related efforts.” Aurelia Figueroa, Global Head of Sustainability at Breitling (www.breitling.com)

“From its inception, ID Genève has designed and manufactured its watches with elements of sustainability at its core. We are excited to join THE INDEX as this initiative validates our efforts. Discovering and getting a better understanding of the technologies that can help support our quest for circularity is also an important benefit for us.” Nicolas Freudiger, Co-founder at ID Genève Watches (https://www.idwatch.ch)

“THE INDEX is so timely and an essential tool for consumers, and an important validator for luxury stake-holders, to better understand the efforts that brands are deploying to enhance transparency in their practic-es. SMCG Wines is honored to be able to showcase the Beast Wine Collection - the world's first fully traceable bespoke wine collection.” Patrick McGee, co-founder and CEO of SMCG Wines (smcg.wine)

“Ultimately providing a mobile authentication technology, enabling end-to-end traceability and proof of origin of components and materials leads to transparency. We are eager to continue to work with this academic-led effort as well as our current clients in providing them with solutions to accomplish this important task. Being the first was important to us to demonstrate to this partnership our strong support and commitment to this endeavor.” Thomas Weiss, CEO & Founder of Authentic Vision (www.authenticvision.com)

“At Movo Partners we accompany organizations in their transformation towards a more sustainable and responsible business model. Transparency is a key pillar of this transformation. We believe that transparency fosters authenticity and accountability. We recognize THE INDEX playing a key role in promoting this evolution and so supporting this academic-led project was an obvious choice. We are proud to be amongst the first supporters of this game-changing initiative for the luxury industries” Sébastien Cretegny, co-
founder and CEO of Movo Partners (www.movopartners.ch)

About E4S
The Enterprise for Society Center (E4S) is a joint venture of the University of Lausanne through HEC Lau-sanne, IMD and EPFL, under the stewardship of its College of Management of Technology, with the mission of spearheading the transition towards a more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive economy. E4S is dedicat-ed to train the next generation of leaders, inspire economic and social transformation, and activate change by strengthening start-ups and boosting innovation.

About Originall
Founded in Switzerland by product security and traceability experts, OriginAll, S.A., is a tech company har-nessing the power of technology to empower stakeholders, and above all people, to fully benefit from safe and secured trade and consumption.

Roohi Khan
E4S-OriginAll-Index
index@e4s-originall-luxury.org