Let’s conclude for now…our tour of virtuous examples of green projects, featuring an iconic brand in tennis…seen on the courts of the ATP tournaments in Turin these days as well. We’re talking about Lacoste, which in 2018 transformed its crocodile logo. A project as simple as it is successful.

A truly brilliant story considering its simplicity and the factor of brand recognition of the interested company. We are talking about Lacoste, the French clothing house founded in 1933 by tennis player Jean René Lacoste whose fame, despite dominating the tennis rankings at the time, is now inextricably 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 in which the historic crocodile logo was replaced by ten different species of endangered animals.

An emblematic example of the role that companies can play in combating the progressive deterioration of environmental conditions and in helping to raise awareness of the importance of the natural ecosystems on which we depend. On May 22, 2019, on International Day of Biological Diversity, ten Lacoste stores in America, Europe, Asia, and even online advertised the limited edition of the new polo shirts, dedicating all the profits derived from the sale to the efforts of IUCN to conserve the endangered wildlife. Moreover – another ingenious find – for each of the ten endangered animals selected, the number of polo shirts produced corresponded to the number of animals remaining in the wild: a total of 3520 polo shirts corresponding to 3520 specimens of animals at risk.

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