On the surface, NGOs partnerships seem to be an easy way for a brand to act on sustainability issues without having to revolutionize its working methods. However, when one starts to dig deeper in the subject, there comes the realization that brands do work on building long-term partnerships, and that this demands a complete engagement on their part to produce tangible effects.

Since the beginning of its UNICEF partnership in 2005, Gucci has committed over USD 12million to support UNICEF HIV/AIDS and education initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership began with the support of UNICEF’s life-saving treatment, care and prevention programs for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi and Mozambique, where nearly 1 million children have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. As the partnership entered its sixth year in 2011, Gucci made a USD 1.15 million donation to UNICEF’s ‘Schools for Africa’ initiative in honor of the ongoing partnership and its children’s collection. Since 2007, the Gucci-UNICEF partnership enjoys an extended visibility through the ‘Gucci for UNICEF bag’, a special edition bag that can be found in all Gucci stores. Gucci donates twenty-five percent of the retail sales’ price worldwide to UNICEF for each bag sold.

For more than 5 years now, Volcom’s environmentally conscious movement toward sustainability has included its partnership with '1% for the Planet'. In addition to donating 1% of its sales of its V.Co-Logical Series to a network of environmental organizations worldwide, Volcom has elevated its commitment to another level with the creation of their New Future program – addressing environmental reporting, events management, sustainability in its products and business operations. Through its ‘1 % for the Planet’ membership, Volcom supports associations such as the ‘Surfrider Foundation’ in Europe, the ‘Association for Protection of the Northeast Atlantic’ in Brazil, and at least 8 organizations in the United States such as ‘Protect Our Winters’, founded by professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones. These partnerships truly reflect the outdoor focus of Volcom’s products, and help the company reinforce its presence amongst the communities who identify themselves with the brand.

Volcom and Gucci's historical NGO partnerships truely illustrate the fact that these two worlds are not as separate as we might come to think, and that even better, they complement and inspire one another... For the long run.