Luxury group Kering wants to reduce its carbon footprint by 40% by 2035: realistic promise or greenwashing?

Luxury knows no crisis, it enjoys it. But as it racks up its maximum profits and raises its prices (which tends to reassure the ultra-wealthy), the industry can also wonder (or pretend to). Witness the Kering group (which owns in particular Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen) which has just communicated its program to reduce carbon emissions, while France is proving to be on fire for the reform of withdrawals.

Kering wants to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 40%

In a press release published on March 17, 2023, Kering declares its commitment to ” reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2035, compared to 2021”. This new target covers scopes 1, 2 and 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (the GHG Protocol provides the most widely used greenhouse gas accounting standards in the world). François-Henri Pinault (CEO since 2003 of the group founded by his father François Pinault) also declares:

“I strongly believe that to build truly sustainable businesses, the next step is to do it achieve a reduction of our impact in absolute terms by creating value. »

To achieve this, the French luxury giant aims at higher prices (to give ” prioritize value over volume », and better monitoring of its supply chain both pursue its growth by reducing total greenhouse gas emissionsreports the specialized newspaper Fashion business. It’s a way of admitting the inadmissible in the fashion industry: we cannot always consume so much hoping to get out of the climate crisis. It is indisputable: the more we produce, the more we pollute. For this reason, Kering’s proposal to change the model by increasing the value of one’s properties rather than increasing their volume to pursue growth may seem interesting.

Decorating its growth from its impact, to produce less but better

The competitor of the LVMH group would already be off to a good start given that in 2021 the growth of the luxury group has already started to deviate from its carbon footprint. That is to say, it continued to grow without its pollution being proportional to its growth, as usually happens. The goal is therefore to continue to redouble our efforts to improve increasingly responsible and rationalized production methods (we are talking about demonstrating operational efficiency) increasing the value of their assets (making them more expensive and making them more acceptable to customers by improving the positioning and exclusivity of brands).

Rather than paying for mass-produced items to achieve economies of scale, customers would then pay from Kering : improve the supply of raw materials, optimize production and stock management, or even promote regenerative agricultural practices and experiment with new generation eco-responsible materials. A bet that may seem risky but which on the contrary could particularly attract those most eager to consume less but better. To see if the nice words will continue to materialize into action.