Durable Elegance for people

In keeping with this approach, we are now placing equal opportunities at the heart of our Durable Elegance model. Although anyone can work towards achieving their goals, the most vulnerable often may need support to overcome the barriers, restrictions and even discrimination arising from their circumstances. For Lacoste, equal opportunities must enable everyone to develop their talents in order to reveal their full potential.

This is why we are now committed to helping young people who lack confidence, socially disfavored people or suffer from handicap, in order to promote their social development and integration into professional life.

Trough The Lacoste Elevating Journey, we encourage our employees to go out and meet these vulnerable people, to offer them personalised support according to their age and needs. These different programmes aim to pass on our knowledge and expertise to those who need it most.

The creator of the crocodile brand believed in the values of sport and mutual assistance as tools for empowerment. He believed that by supporting vulnerable people, it is possible to help them overcome the barriers and constraints linked to their social conditions, in order to give them the ability to act and achieve their goals.

René Lacoste demonstrated this when he gave young people from some of the poorest backgrounds the opportunity to play golf, thus helping to create an entire generation of champions. When, during the Second World War, he entrusted young workers with the planting of 40,000 trees for the family golf course at Chantaco, he combined environmental and social action by preventing these men from being sent to Germany for forced labour as part of Compulsory Work Service (STO). Throughout his life he helped many young people reach their potential, by cultivating team spirit, motivation and self-improvement.

“Confidence, tenacity, perseverance, rigor:
with weapons like these, everyone can build a life.”

René Lacoste

His partner and friend André Gillier, who was entrusted with the production of his polo shirts, shared the same values and desire for greater social justice. André was a leading figure in the French hosiery industry and his avant-garde social policy earned him the nickname “Industrial philanthropist”.

Established in 2006 under the aegis of the Fondation de France, its objective is to restore the confidence of socially disadvantaged young people by instilling into them the values of sport. Drawing on a network of partner associations active in 8 countries, the Lacoste Foundation has helped 70,000 underprivileged young people between the ages of 6 and 21 to flourish, gain self-confidence, follow their own path to achieve their goals and build their lives.

As the architects of its past and future success, Lacoste’s employees occupy a special place at the heart of the sustainable development initiative. The integration of diverse backgrounds, gender equality, safety, development of skills and employability, detection of potential and career management of talent within the Group, are all prerequisites for the deployment of initiatives with external stakeholders.
For our employees to become ambassadors of the company’s values and to ensure its development in harmony with its commitments, their professional fulfilment is a priority, reflected in the human resource policy.

At Lacoste, we believe that the contribution of each stakeholder is essential to fight against the growing inequalities that fracture our communities. In addition to our responsibility as an employer, we are aware of the societal role that companies like ours can play alongside public authorities and the many key players in the educational and community sectors in promoting the inclusion of the most vulnerable.

Aware of this responsibility and strengthened by its social heritage, Lacoste has placed equal opportunities at the heart of its Durable Elegance approach, developed a roadmap, and quantified its commitments for 2025.

In 2020, the crocodile brand is launching its Elevating Journey roadmap to promote equal opportunities. Designed to promote the social and professional integration of people who are socially disfavored or suffering from handicap, this plan is based on three specific areas, depending on the age and needs of the beneficiaries:

1. Self confidence: Work with vulnerable young people to boost self-confidence, restore self-esteem, develop life paths with them and help them to build their career vision with enthusiasm.
2. Qualifications: Share our expertise and know-how with disfavored or young people suffering from handicap who have a passion for fashion, enabling them to acquire skills and professional experience, enhancing their employability in the industry.
3. Starting-up: Support socially disfavored people or people suffering from handicap to make their entrepreneurial dream in the fashion industry a reality by providing them with our expertise and resources.

Restore confidence in their own abilities to vulnerable young people is an essential step to enable them to project themselves into the future and develop a life path.

This fundamental work is more than ever at the heart of the Lacoste Foundation’s mission, whose resources have been boosted in recent months to extend the network of partner associations and its geographical coverage.

As an extension of the grassroots work carried out by the organisations supported by the Lacoste Foundation, we want to extend child or adolescent sponsorship on a large scale. Based on the feedback from pioneering experiments initiated by our employees in recent years, we believe this type of long-term individual support is one of the most effective ways of enabling young people in vulnerable situations to look to their future with the confidence they need.

In addition to these plans, Lacoste also wants to help young people have a better understanding of the business world and fashion industry.

At Lacoste, sharing our expertise is at the heart of our approach to equal opportunities. As a company committed to excellence, we know that a lack of qualifications or professional experience can be a discriminating factor when applying for a job.

At Lacoste, we cannot simply accept this fact. We believe that anyone who is genuinely interested in working in the fashion industry should have the chance to showcase their talent and potential. This is why Lacoste is committed to helping people who lack training and are interested in pursuing a career in the fashion industry.

First of all, Lacoste wishes to increase access to internships for people who are socially disfavored people or suffering from handicap. .

By 2025, the company plans to reserve up to 10% of the existing global internship offerings in the entire Lacoste ecosystem for these candidates.

Internal awareness-raising work is currently being conducted with potential internship supervisors. In order to welcome these people in the best possible conditions, we offer each training supervisor a training and monitoring framework to ensure the course runs smoothly throughout its duration

In addition to its internship policy, Lacoste wishes to strengthen its role as a trainer by opening its Academies, originally intended for the training of its own employees, to welcome people from outside the company, particularly in our two areas of excellence:

Manufacturing via our Manufacturing Academy

Sales, via our Customer Experience Academy.

Equality of opportunity must also be extended to equality in undertaking. This is why Lacoste wants to offer tailor-made support to entrepreneurs who intend to work in the fashion industry. For motivated people, social background or disability should not be an obstacle to entrepreneurship. However, it is essential to master each aspect and stage of the process for the project to be viable and its launch to be successful, such as conducting a market study, writing a business plan, defining the business status, financing, manufacturing, developing a commercial action plan, creating a website, and communicating on social media. These are some of the areas where we can help young entrepreneurs with their projects by making our resources available to them.

From 2022, Lacoste will help entrepreneurs create their own business by assisting them throughout the process. Each year we aim to help five entrepreneurs turn their dreams into a reality

During several months and over a period of one year, each of the five programme participants will be supported by a Lacoste mentor who will help them navigate their way around the company and access the necessary resources and meet with the relevant experts for their projects.

In addition, with the help of their mentor, the participants will have the opportunity to talk to any relevant Lacoste experts about finance, law, production, operations, logistics, design, marketing, and research. All of our expertise will be at the disposal of the participants.

During the programme, a seminar which brings together members of Lacoste’s senior management and external experts around the five entrepreneurs, will support them in the finalisation of their project thanks to collective intelligence.

The whole process will help the young entrepreneurs reinforce the viability of their projects. Finally, they will present their project to the Lacoste Executive Committee, which may award them with a grant contributing to the financing of their project.

“Whatever the activity, the desire to improve is the purest path to satisfaction.”