A World First for Measuring Traceability Initiatives in Luxury Goods

The E4S OriginAll Luxury Transparency and Traceability Index, aka THE INDEX, is the world's first platform for measuring how effectively luxury brands are using technology to increase transparency and traceability, with a particular focus on technologies that enhance product security and product data.

Today, luxury brand owners are using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and unique product traceability solutions to refine their marketing strategies and enhance customer experience. While enhancing transparency is an important business issue for luxury brands, it is also a sustainability concern. Indeed, production of fake goods often takes place in unregulated environments, which include workforce exploitation, child labour and polluting materials and machinery.

'One of the challenges for luxury brands in the age of positive impact sustainability, is how much they should disclose and how much they shouldn't to protect the luxury mystique. THE INDEX can help them understand better the impact of their transparency initiatives on consumers' perception. Hence, our call to all luxury stakeholders to support this important initiative by sharing their information on our data collection portal,' said Stéphane J G Girod, Professor of Strategy and Organisational Innovation at IMD Business School, one of the four academic institutions involved in the initiative.

Indeed, THE INDEX is the brainchild of an academia-led, public-private-partnership between the Enterprise for Society Center (a joint venture of four Swiss academic institutions including IMD), the Swiss Center for Luxury Research, and tech company OriginAll.

It is a tech-agnostic, consumer-centric platform, open to all organisations worldwide, including luxury brands, technology providers, associations, NGOs, and consulting companies.

The data that is fed into the platform is sourced directly from the luxury brands themselves, in the form of self-assessments based on transparency keywords and UN Sustainable Development Goals. The output from this data will provide a holistic mapping of implemented initiatives and technology solutions.

Breitling (Switzerland), ID Genève Watches (Switzerland), SMCG Wines (South Africa), Authentic Vision (Austria) and Movo Partners (Switzerland) were amongst the first supporters of this research project. Other participants, as far as technology providers are concerned, include AlpVision, iTraceiT, Chekkit, and Crane Authentication.

All participants will be asked to complete an online survey and self-assessment, for analysis by researchers. The results of the analysis will be published in the first edition of the INDEX, due for launch by the end of Q3 2023.

Luxury brands, technology providers and contributors to luxury industries are invited to join this academic-led initiative and collaborate with E4S and OriginAll by allowing their researchers to take a deep dive into their contributions, in order to ensure more transparency to end-consumers and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

Contact Ms Roohi Khan, Project Director, [email protected].