As a global luxury company, it’s our responsibility to seek solutions to reduce the impact of our value chain. This means embracing new technologies, using low impact materials, creating products designed to last, and offering services that extend the life cycle of our products.
The most effective way to tackle the scarcity of natural resources and mitigate environmental impacts is by transitioning to a circular economy, which entails innovating materials and production processes, and rethinking the end-of-life of products when designing them. This is why we search for and collaborate with innovative partners, such as Coronet. This is why we are constantly exploring new lower environmental impact materials that can also ensure the same levels of quality, aesthetics, and above all durability that distinguish our brand.
The raw materials mostly used in our collections are synthetics and natural fibers, with a minimal amount of paper and cardboard, cellulose fibers, and metals. Each of them presents challenges and opportunities that can be leveraged to create sustainable, scalable, and long-lasting change. We’ve defined specific internal guidelines to formalize our commitment to switching to lower impact materials, outlining the best practices and principles to ensure the responsible selection and sourcing of every material and component used in our products. Discover our 2025 Targets →
Packaging is a distinguishing feature of all our products and of our customers’ shopping experience. We put great effort into researching innovative solutions to reduce the amount of packaging materials we need, while enhancing their overall durability, reusability, and recyclability. This includes exploring low-impact materials that are either certified, recycled, bio-based, biodegradable, and/or responsibly sourced. The first results of this commitment can be seen in our Forward stores' packaging, made entirely of 100% FSC1 certified recycled paper, and in the new Yatay packaging, which is completely recyclable and made of up to 50% recycled FSC paper.
We strive to create timeless collections that meet our customers’ high expectations of quality, durability, and design, and at the same time deliver innovative solutions that help reduce our impact on the environment. This is the philosophy behind our very first Sustainable Choice collection, featuring three different categories based on the materials used:
Sustainable - the products in this category are entirely made of materials classified as innovative and/or low impact.
Low Impact - the products in this category are made of at least 30% certified materials that are either recycled, bio-based, and/or from responsible sources.
Vegan - the products in this category are 100% animal-free.
The Sustainable category was born with our very first bio-based sneaker, the Yatay Model 1B, entirely made in Italy using top-quality, animal-free materials. It is made of Yatay B, a bio-based material derived from non-food plant sources, and features other low impact components such as recycled cotton and polyester laces and a biodegradable rubber sole
The use of Yatay B to make the upper and other parts of the shoe allows cutting CO2 emissions by 90% and water consumption by 65% during production compared to using conventional leather.
What’s more, the Yatay Model 1B comes with an entirely new box concept designed with one goal in mind: to minimize the use of unnecessary packaging materials and their respective impacts. It’s a packaging and shipping box combined in one, completely recyclable, and made of up to 50% recycled FSC1 paper sourced from pulp and paper mills that adopt responsible forest management practices. It’s a pure reflection of our approach to packaging
1 Forest Stewardship Council. Discover More on Yatay →
We design products that are both timeless and seasonless, using high quality materials meant to last.This concept of durability and flexibility of use, both promoting circularity, has always been intrinsic to our products. Our next step is to build on this, transitioning to a more circular business model structured around sustainability. This means searching for materials with the lowest environmental impact, extending product use and lifespan (for example, by repairing, upcycling, or repurposing), improving recovery and recycling through product design, and developing low-impact production, logistics, and packaging processes. We blended this vision into one space, creating something we feel is truly unique: our Forward store.
The Forward store concept revolves around one ambition: to extend the lifespan of the items that people cherish the most, giving them new life so that they may continue to be part of our customers’ personal journeys.
Every Forward store gives customers access to an array of services, regardless of product brand. Our Repair service – known as Calzoleria (for shoes) and Sartoria (for clothing items) – features a range of maintenance options to extend product life cycle. Our Remake service is an interactive, personalized experience guided by our brand’s Dream Makers, which allows customers to design their own one-of-a-kind products or customize any new or pre-owned items. Our Recycling program enables them to dispose of any unwanted wardrobe items, free of charge. Additionally, each Forward store operates as a physical Reselling platform for pre-owned Golden Goose sneakers and garments
In early 2023, we announced the creation of the Yatay Lab, born from our partnership with Coronet Group, leader in the research and production of bio-based and recycled materials, and the worldwide reference point for the sustainable Made in Italy luxury market. The Yatay Lab has been conceived to be a Co-Action platform for the research and development of circular materials and products. Representing the quintessence of innovation, this strategic laboratory is equipped with the latest and most sophisticated instruments, and is entirely focused on developing high-quality, sustainable materials and breakthrough solutions.
The Lab allows continuous testing phases, directly verifying the outcomes on our products, collecting consumers’ feedback, and subsequently making the results available for all luxury players thus accelerating the circular transformation of the fashion industry and moving forward together creating a chain of positive change.