Social Responsibility

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

At Wide Open World, we are committed to leading with transparency, authenticity, and environmental stewardship. Our approach to social responsibility reflects these principles and guides every decision we make.

Introduction

The story of human progress is remarkable. We've developed sophisticated technologies, extended life expectancy, and even ventured into space. Yet this progress comes at a cost. Our current rate of resource consumption threatens the very systems that sustain us. Despite our ability to measure environmental decline through advanced scientific methods, we struggle to act decisively.

The challenge is clear: we must elevate our decision-making beyond short-term economic gains. This requires a fundamental shift in how businesses operate and how they measure success. At Wide Open World, we're implementing this change through transparent practices and measurable commitments to sustainability with our adoption of APres, the first business model in the world grounded in absolute sustainability science.

We recognise that discussion alone won't drive change. Our focus is on concrete actions that demonstrate a new model for luxury fashion—one that prioritises environmental balance over volume production. We call this Restore Balance™.

Mission

We envision a world where luxury helps restore environmental balance and commercial activity exists in harmony with natural systems.

Our mission is to elevate standards in luxury fashion by crafting mindful apparel for discerning individuals, and inspiring our industry towards absolute sustainability.

Our Commitments

1 Environmental sustainability

We focus on maintaining ecological balance in each ecosystem that supports our operations. We also minimise our ecological pollution through careful material selection, waste reduction, and efficient energy use. Finally we recognise the need to phase out the use of fossil fuels and strive to optimise our supply chain to favour actors that align with our vision, not with pledges, but with concrete investments. Each decision we make is responsibly evaluated against the seventh-generation principle and the APres model.

2 Ethical business practices

We follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as our baseline. This means ensuring fair wages, championing diversity, and maintaining vigilant oversight of our supply chains to prevent modern slavery, with at a bare minimum, auditing each supplier.

3 Equal opportunities and pay

Our workplace culture actively promotes diversity and equal opportunity. We maintain strict pay equality and create clear paths for professional advancement. We reject discrimination in all its forms.

4 Transparency and accountability

We believe in transparency and accountability in all aspects of our business. We openly communicate our sustainability goals, progress, and challenges with our stakeholders, inviting feedback and collaboration to drive continuous improvement—transparency means acknowledging challenges as well as achievements. As we grow our business, our annual evaluations ensure that our actions remain aligned with our values and aspirations.

Environmental safeguarding

Current business sustainability approaches are grounded in what is called eco-efficiency. The "less impact is more sustainable" belief. However reducing impact per product leads to production intensification in most cases, and doesn't prevent total output from increasing. If using less land, less water, less materials to create one unit of output was the solution, we would know it by now since technological efficiency has never been as high as it is today.

This relative sustainability approach misses a crucial point—our ecosystems continue to decline despite these efficiency gains. Worse, efficiency gains increase the rate at which ecosystems decline.

The fundamental flaw lies in prioritising production volume over environmental capacity. When businesses focus solely on reducing impact per product while increasing output, the total environmental burden still grows. What's needed is a shift in perspective: before we reduce, reuse, and recycle, we must restore and protect the critical fraction that shall remain of our natural systems. In other words, we need to maintain a balance between the pressure we put on natural systems and the safe margin beyond which these systems may start to irreversibly change.

Working with Natropy's APres sustainable business model allows us to measure our activities against scientific ecological boundaries and address the need to safeguard them. We strive to maintain an ecological balance at all times which requires us to protect natural habitats in the ecosystems we operate in. These limits inform our decisions, from production volumes to material sourcing.

This approach challenges conventional business wisdom. It means sometimes choosing lower production volumes to stay within sustainable limits. It means investing in environmental restoration rather than just claiming carbon neutrality. Most importantly, it means making decisions based on environmental capacity rather than market demand. As environmental stewards, we recognise that an ecosystem's health matters more than individual product metrics.

We document these choices and their outcomes transparently. This serves two purposes: it holds us accountable and provides a practical model for others to adopt. While the challenges are significant, we believe this approach offers the only viable path forward for luxury fashion, and business in general.

Through measured action and honest reporting, we're showing how commercial success and environmental stewardship can coexist. We invite you to examine our progress and join us in transforming not just fashion, but business itself.

Chapters

Fashion Global Challenges Sustainability Myths Absolute Sustainability Planetary Boundaries APres Business Model Carbon Tunnel Vision Rethinking Non-Profits Social Responsibility Animal Welfare

Chapters