Sustainability continues to be an important issue for the fashion industry, even if the fervor with which it’s discussed has diminished in recent seasons. Since the launch of Coachtopia in 2023, responsible design has become a guiding principle through which the brand’s creative director Stuart Vevers channels expression. “Coachtopia is really about experimenting and using the power of design and creativity to do things differently,” he said on this week’s episode of The Run-Through, where he joins Nicole Phelps to discuss the hard truths and the deep rewards of working through a sustainability lens.

“I came from a place where I was nervous about sustainability, and I always felt like it might be someone else’s responsibility—production, the supply chain, whatever it is. But everything starts with design,” Vevers explains. “When I started to talk about it and acknowledge that it can be difficult, that I won’t always get it right, but I’m trying and I’m pushing forward—that’s when I stopped being fearful about sustainability and I just started to take action. Then I started to attract like-minded people, suppliers would come to me with ideas, and within my own team people started to put their hands up, and say, oh, I have an idea I’d like to share, and that for me was really powerful.”

Vevers’s goal is for Coach to become net zero, meaning that the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere is equal to the amount removed by 2050. “A lot of the goals we’ve set, we’ve actually achieved them ahead of time,” Vevers adds. “And that would certainly be my ambition; to get there ahead of time. So we’re not waiting until 2030 or 2040, we’re starting now.” Listen to the conversation below.