After almost a decade of spurring Lululemon’s embrace of progressive supplies and secondhand gross sales, Esther Speck is stepping away. Speck, who joined the Vancouver athleisure put on large in 2015 as vp of world sustainability, spent the previous two years as its senior vp of world sustainable enterprise and affect.
“After I joined Lululemon 10 years in the past, I got down to construct a world operate, enterprise technique, and platform for affect — one that will assist form the way forward for this excessive development model and catalyze affect past the corporate’s partitions,” Speck posted on LinkedIn on Might 8. “I’m proud to say that we’ve completed this. What started as a small, mighty crew is now a world community of over 80 good leaders world wide … .”
Speck approached sustainability as an innovation problem, she instructed Trellis Co-Founder Joel Makower in 2024. She additionally noticed that work via the lens of “what it means to be a model rooted in well-being.”
Innovating
Athletic put on depends closely on artificial supplies produced from fossil fuels. As Lululemon’s web income greater than doubled from 2020 to 2023, so did its greenhouse gases. And that attracted hearth from activists. So in 2020, Lululemon made an formidable dedication: for 100% of its merchandise to characteristic most well-liked content material and end-of-life options by 2030.
In taking Lululemon midway via this 10-year transformation, Speck was concerned in quite a few interconnected packages and workstreams to increase product life and innovate supplies. Startups benefiting from Lululemon’s strategic investments and partnerships included Geno, maker of a plant-based nylon, and Bolt Threads, maker of a fungus-based leather-based different (discontinued in 2023). Most just lately, Lululemon introduced, in March, a partnership with ZymoChem to broaden work on biobased nylon. One other partnership, with Australian enzymatic recycler Samsara Eco, resulted within the Swiftly Tech long-sleeve high and an anorak jacket.
By 2023, Lululemon counted 57 p.c most well-liked supplies in its sourcing, a one-year rise of 44 p.c.
In the meantime, Lululemon Like New branded resale program llaunched 4 years in the past. Speck credit the heads of retail and innovation for spearheading that initiative.
Throughout Speck’s tenure, Lululemon additionally engaged in a number of collaborations to advance local weather progress throughout the attire trade. These embrace the UN Constitution for Local weather Motion; the Trend Local weather Fund, an Attire Affect Institute undertaking to drive down emissions within the trade’s provide chains; and Trend for Good’s Sorting for Circularity USA effort to map textile waste.
Shifting ahead
One 12 months in the past, the Ladies’s Govt Community named her one of many high 100 strongest girls in Canada. “Play the lengthy recreation, belief and put money into folks, be true to your self, invite daring imaginative and prescient and pragmatic motion,” Speck stated round that point.
Her undefined subsequent steps embrace “adventuring on this stunning planet past the boardroom, whereas persevering with to contribute via thought management and mentorship earlier than beginning new affect endeavors.”
Likewise, it’s unknown who will fill her sneakers at Lululemon as its 2030 supplies innovation targets and more and more difficult net-zero local weather aim for 2050 close to.