Let’s conclude for now… our overview of virtuous examples of green projects, with an iconic tennis brand… also seen in recent days on the ATP courts in Turin. We are talking about Lacoste which, in 2018, transformed its crocodile. A project as simple as it is successful.

A truly brilliant story if you consider its simplicity and the recognizability factor of the brand involved. We are talking about Lacoste, the French clothing company founded in 1933 by the tennis player Jean Renè Lacoste whose fame, despite dominating the tennis palmarès in those years, is now closely linked to the traditional polo shirt with the crocodile logo placed on the left of the chest.

In 2018, Lacoste, as part of a collaboration with the SOS – Save Our Species initiative of the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, launched a limited edition polo shirt in which the historic crocodile logo was replaced from ten different species of animals in danger of extinction.

An emblematic example of the role that companies can have in counteracting the progressive worsening of environmental conditions and contributing to increasing awareness of the importance of the natural ecosystems on which we depend. Therefore, on May 22, 2019, on the International Day of Biological Diversity, ten Lacoste stores in America, Europe, Asia and also online advertised the limited edition of the new polo shirts, allocating all profits derived from the sale to the IUCN’s efforts for conservation of threatened wildlife. Furthermore – another brilliant idea – for each of the ten endangered animals chosen, the number of polo shirts produced corresponded to the number of animals remaining in nature: a total of 3520 polo shirts corresponding to 3520 specimens of animals at risk.

An initiative that was also immediately noticed by tennis fans during the 2019 ATP Master in Rome, in which the Lacoste ambassador, Novak Djokovic, wore one of the polo shirts dedicated to seals.