Conspicuous consumption

The British luxury brand Burberry brought in $3.6 billion in revenue last year — and destroyed $36.8 million worth of its own merchandise.

In July 2018, the brand admitted in its annual report that demolishing goods was just part of its strategy to preserve its reputation of exclusivity.

Shoppers did not react well to this news. People vowed to boycott Burberry over its wastefulness, while members of Parliament demanded the British government crack down on the practice. The outrage worked: Burberry announced two weeks ago it would no longer destroy its excess product, effective immediately.

Yet Burberry is hardly the only company to use this practice; it runs high to low, from Louis Vuitton to Nike. Brands destroy product as a way to maintain exclusivity through scarcity, but the precise details of who is doing it and why are not commonly publicized. Every now and then, though, bits of information will trickle out. Last year, for example, a Danish TV station revealed that the fast-fashion retailer H&M had burned 60 tons of new and unsold clothes since 2013.

In May 2018, Richemont, the owner of the jewelry and watch brands Cartier, Piaget, and Baume & Mercier, admitted that in an effort to keep its products out of the hands of unauthorized sellers, it had destroyed about $563 million worth of watches over the past two years. Whistleblowing sales associates and eagle-eyed shoppers have pointed out how this practice happens at Urban Outfitters, Walmart, Eddie Bauer, Michael Kors, Victoria’s Secret, and J.C. Penny.

The fashion industry is often cited as one of the world’s worst polluters — but destroying perfectly usable merchandise in an effort to maintain prestige is perhaps the dirtiest secret of them all.