dry since 2020 it has implemented an ambitious policy of biodiversity preservation in response to its great dependence on raw materials from nature or agriculture.
LA TRIBUNE SUNDAY — What are your main motivations for preserving biodiversity?
MARIE-CLAIRE DAVEU — Biodiversity has long been the poor report of corporate environmental policies. In Kering, when François-Henri Pinault took the reins of the group almost twenty years ago, issues related to sustainable development became central. Even before any pressure from our customers or our shareholders, I was convinced that they were indispensable to our strategy, both in ethics and in business since, in fact, the raw materials we used came from the nature or agriculture. This high dependency is important in relation to the resilience of our supply chains. The expectations of the financial sector are those that have evolved the most in recent years. The subjects ESG they pose increasing risk management challenges regarding the resilience of our supply chains, operations and reputational risk.
On the customer side, for most of them, luxury is synonymous with expertiseheritage, of very high quality, and remains also associated with taking into account the well-being of people inside and outside the company. Young people are more informed and increasingly monitor the activities of companies. Our initiatives are also important in the eyes of young graduates, and fully playing the card of transparency, on our environmental actions for example, allows us to recruit the best talents in a very competitive job market.
At the same time, regulations are becoming increasingly demanding. In Europe, the implementation of CSRD – the new European extra-financial reporting directive – is still in its early stages, but can be very valuable if used as a governance tool. Companies communicate more and more on these subjects, but it remains difficult for analysts to have tangible elements of comparison. Finally, we are very aware that we would not be able to achieve our climate goals, which have just been certified SBTi (1) (Science-based target initiative), without having an effective tool regarding biodiversity.
You were pioneers in environmental accounting 10 years ago, what use do you still make of it today?
Aware that we cannot reduce what we cannot measure, we published our first Environmental Performance Statement (EP&L) at group level in 2015. This tool measures CO emissions2water consumption, air and water pollution, land use and waste production generated by the activities of each of our homes and throughout its supply chain, then calculate the cost, in euros, of these impacts for the planet. So what, the EP&L it allows us to better dialogue with the Finance teams in order to transform practices more quickly, but also to map our environmental impacts and trace them to farms or fields. HA In view of these results, in the last ten years we have implemented sustainable supply chains and programs to restore and preserve biodiversity, such as the Regenerative Nature Fund, launched with Conservation International in 2021.
What does this fund consist of?
It aims to transform one million hectares of conventional agriculture into regenerative agriculture and focuses on four key raw materials: leather, cottoncashmere and wool – so better produced, will be included in the supply chains of the fashion sector. Supported by the NGO Conservation International – which brings its technical know-how – we support breeders both in France and abroad.South Africa. We opened this fund to other companies, and Inditex (parent company of ZARA in particular) invested 15 million euros in it. We do not buy raw materials directly, but our goal is that all these crops can integrate our supply chain. Much remains to be finalised, in collaboration with our Tier 1 suppliers, we encourage them to supply from these producers, as well as cashmere or recycled nylon manufacturers. At the same time, independently of our supply chain, we are preserving a million hectares of “irreplaceable” critical habitats, with a high heritage value, without any expected production.
What other levers do you pull out of regenerative agriculture?
Since 2019, we have applied the principles that structure the Agec law (anti-waste law for a circular economy) in all our countries. We no longer destroy unsold items and recover the raw material for recycling. Innovation plays a key role in achieving our sustainable development goals, which is why we work with more than 250 start-ups around the world and across the value chain. Our Houses are also very active in terms of innovation: for example, Balenciaga designed a coat based on nanocellulose and another in mycelium.
At Group level, we created a Kering Generation Award in 2018, in China, to identify more sustainable solutions for the textile sector, and replicated this initiative in Japan and then in Saudi Arabia. This year, we have just extended the concept of this Award to our jewelry activities. Finally, we strongly believe in the collective. We started the Pact of fashion at the request of President Emmanuel Macron during the G7 2019: this coalition is led by the CEOs of 75 companies in 17 countries and represents 30% of the fashion sector in the world. No group can meet the challenges of our century alone: success will rest on the collective and open source.
We have observed a certain decline in these environmental subjects, symbolized by the re-election of a climate skeptic to the White House.
What does not change are the physical limits of the planet. Rhetoric sometimes differs from reality, but companies are increasingly aware of the importance and urgency of having resilient supply chains. However, everyone wants to continue to satisfy customers and keep the economy going! Beyond geopolitical tensions and economic crises, limit climate change, erosion of biodiversity and that of many natural resources are unavoidable problems today. We can no longer turn a blind eye, we have to mobilize everyone and it is exciting and beautiful to move forward with these challenges!
(1) The science-based targets initiative certifies companies’ greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in accordance with the Paris Agreement and in accordance with climate science.
