Since she launched Project Ocean in Selfridges in 2011, Alannah Weston has placed sustainability at the heart of the company’s busines plan by committing to reinventing materials, models and mindsets. She has achieved this whilst reinvigorating the brand and earning Selfridges the title of ‘World’s Best Department Store’ four times.

At this special fireside chat, she joins Conduit Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer Paul van Zyl to explore her sustainability thinking and visionary leadership of the retail sector.

Speakers:

Alannah Weston’s mission as Chairman of Selfridges Group, a position held since 2019, is to empower talented people to deliver extraordinary customer experience within human and planetary boundaries. Selfridges Group is a collection of international department stores that exist to imagine and create a sustainable future for their people and customers. With 25 stores worldwide across 5 brands, Selfridges Group includes Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland, De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands, Holt Renfrew in Canada, and Selfridges in the UK. Alannah became Creative Director of Selfridges in 2003, playing a key role in its transformation into a leading luxury department store with 4 stores in the UK and a digital platform delivering to 130 countries. She is credited with reinvigorating the brand through a focus on creativity and sustainability. During her tenure, the department store was voted World’s Best Department Store four times (GDSS 2010, 2012, 2014, 2018). Alannah spearheads the Group’s sustainability strategy, most recently with the launch of Project Earth at Selfridges in 2020. The initiative seeks to change the way we shop by building on the industry-leading steps the company has taken over the last 10 years, and sees Selfridges place sustainability at its heart by committing to reinventing materials, models and mindsets. All four banners in the Group committed to Science Based Targets in 2021 and are signatories to the Climate Pledge to achieve NetZero by 2040, 10 years earlier than the Paris Agreement.

Paul Van Zyl is a Co-Founder of The Conduit and its Chief Creative Officer. Paul trained as a human rights lawyer and went on to serve as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He later co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice.

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