Packaging

Burberry has eliminated plastic from its consumer-facing packaging, confirming that both of its customer packaging options are now plastic-free and that it has met its 2025 elimination target. The paper it uses is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and widely recyclable, and in 2024 around 98% of paper-based packaging procured was FSC certified.

Reusable elements have been built in, including a 100% recycled cotton tote used to package selected coats, a garment cover made from at least 60% recycled cotton, and FSC-certified wooden hangers for rainwear and tailoring. Buttons on heritage styles use a 90% bio-based resin. The remaining gap sits in operational and transit packaging, where plastic has not yet been fully removed.

Materials and Sourcing

As of 2024-2025, around 55% of key raw materials (cotton, synthetics, viscose, wool, leather, and feather and down, which together make up over 90% of material volume by weight) were certified or responsibly sourced, against a target of 100% by 2029-2030. The clearest bright spot is the heritage trench, whose gabardine is now woven from 100% organically grown cotton at the brand's own mills in Yorkshire, England. Burberry also uses recycled polyester, recycled nylon and recycled wool, certified down (Responsible Down Standard) and certified wool (Responsible Wool Standard, ZQ Merino, Nativa). Viscose is held to Canopy's Green Shirt rating to keep it away from ancient and endangered forests, PVC is prohibited, and a traceability programme for cotton, wool and synthetics has begun.

Roughly 45% of key materials remain uncertified, and conventional cotton is sourced largely through Better Cotton, a mass-balance system rather than physically segregated organic fibre. Leather remains a major material, certified at tannery level for environmental and social compliance but with limited farm-level traceability, and virgin synthetics still appear across collections.

Energy Use & Carbon Footprint

Burberry measures and reports emissions across all three scopes with external limited assurance, most recently by Ernst and Young, and has cut its market-based Scope 1 and 2 emissions by around 93% against its 2016-2017 baseline. The company reports that its own operations are carbon neutral and that it runs on 100% renewable electricity, and it holds near-term Science Based Targets, including a 46% reduction in absolute Scope 3 emissions by 2030. It was the first luxury brand to issue a sustainability bond, raising 300 million pounds in 2020. 

The vast majority of its footprint sits in Scope 3 (roughly 370,000 tonnes of CO2e, more than 99% of the total), where progress is harder and slower. Strong operational performance and transparent, assured reporting are tempered by the delayed long-term goal and the scale of the supply-chain footprint still to be addressed.

Waste Management

It is a partner in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Make Fashion Circular initiative, runs the ReBurberry Fabric programme that donates surplus fabric to fashion schools, and works with Elvis and Kresse to transform leather offcuts (a commitment covering 120 tonnes) into new products. 

The brand reports repairing or refreshing around 43,000 products and has launched its first product upcycle programme, and it designs for longevity, which is the most material lever a durable-goods brand has. The gaps are a lack of any comprehensive resale, take-back or buyback scheme for customers, and the lingering reputational weight of the earlier overproduction and destruction.

Business Model

As a seasonal luxury fashion house, Burberry's core model sits in tension with slow-consumption principles. It shows new runway collections, refreshes inventory regularly, operates outlet channels and runs markdowns, and its history of overproduction is well documented. Counterbalancing this, the brand is built on durable, high-quality products designed to last, anchored by genuinely evergreen icons such as the trench coat, and it offers repair and aftercare services that extend product life. Its recent turnaround strategy has leaned on heritage and core, longer-lived products rather than disposable trend pieces.