Burberry amplifies regenerative agriculture in latest ‘Landscapes’ iteration

January 23, 2023

The brand’s "Landscapes" project doubles as a storytelling exercise, sowing into the soil as much as it reaps from the planet in the process. Image credit: Burberry

By Amirah Keaton

British fashion house Burberry is paying homage to heritage with an art installation that encourages regeneration.

This time around, the brand has covered a South African countryside in its iconic Burberry Check, endowing a natural landscape with regenerative agricultural capabilities. The brand’s earthly work doubles as a storytelling exercise, sowing into the soil as much as it reaps from the planet in the process.

"Landscapes" takes the Cape
For a new iteration of its immersive series, Burberry travels halfway across the globe.

The initiative at hand falls under Burberry’s “Landscapes” series. The campaign, global in scope, captures snippets of projects that infuse sustainable elements, all executed on behalf of the brand.

The series sees Burberry operating in-community with creative collectives around the world. As of late, the brand has honed in on one in particular.

Aerial shots quickly reveal the brand’s latest – an expressive motif in meadow form takes shape, embedded into a meadow and placed across the ground of a South African countryside in the Western Cape.

“We’ve carefully chosen our plants and species to blend into the natural environment,” a narrator explains.

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“We’ve grown them from seed to maturity in three months, and we’ve placed this installation at the foothills of the Overberg mountain, which forms the greater water catchment area for the Western Cape.”

Alongside a similar installation in the Canary Islands, this rendition of Burberry Landscapes, like many before it, is specifically designed to bear no negative impact on the surrounding environment.

The South African version of the Burberry Check overlay features flora selected with help from biodiversity experts, to ensure net-positive impact, African Daisies and honey-scented Helichrysum Petiolare among them.

Flowers, all of which attract native fauna such as birds and pollinating insects, were hand-planted by locals with a level of familiarity with the area, and further, are treated exclusively with rainfall water.

Besides a natural synergy, the installation is also expertly emblematic of a deeper tale. In 1937, pioneering aviator Betty Kirby-Green took a record-breaking flight from Clapham to Cape Town.

The South African version of the Burberry Check overlay features flora selected with help from biodiversity experts, to ensure a net-positive impact. Image credit: Burberry

Alongside her co-pilot, flying officer Arthur Clouston, Ms. Kirby-Green traversed the skies in a plane called The Burberry. The meadow recalls this piece of Burberry’s history.

A student of sustainability himself, a poem by Wilson Oryema, a London-based writer, multi-disciplinary artist and fellow of the Royal Society of Arts tops off the effort, helping to illuminate the project in all its glory.

“This piece was designed to be ephemeral,” chimes another voice, closing out Burberry’s selection.

“It is meant to fade away with the wind and rain, and it centers you the way that a lot of places do not.”

Burberry looks ahead
Though portions of Burberry’s project will disappear over time, its commitment to responsible practices are enduring.

Released last year on behalf of Burberry Foundation, “Positively Impacting 1 Million People 2017-2022” marked the brand’s first social impact report, which detailed progress enacted across three specific issue areas – educational inequality, employee preparedness and economic empowerment through sustainable means (see story).

A total of 22.8 million euros, or $22.7 million, invested in the interest of impact represents 1 percent of adjusted group profit pretax in yearly donations for Burberry, which aligns with the donation average for Fortune 500 company contributions as of late, per a Vogue Business report.

In June of 2021, the brand made headlines as the first major luxury player to commit to “climate positivity,” a term Burberry defined with a plan to remove or save more carbon emissions than it produces, instilling the environment with a net benefit.

Burberry is working against the macro goal of achieving net-zero by 2040 (see story).

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