Project Description

Location: Worldwide – Europe (manufacturing), North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia (raw materials)

Primary stakeholders: Private sector (Kering Group and the Fashion Pact)

Sector/industry: Fashion and textiles

Primary extractive or damaging activities: Direct exploitation, land use, carbon emissions, pollution, mineral extraction

Affected ecosystem(s) and biodiversity: Ungulate rangelands (e.g. for wool, leather, cashmere), forest and grasslands (e.g. converted for farming and cotton production), ostriches, crocodiles and alligators, pythons (sourced for precious skins), oceans (e.g. via waste)

Goal(s):  Net positive impact on biodiversity by 2025 (Kering Biodiversity Strategy 2020)

Kering also has additional sustainability goals beyond biodiversity impacts, which include: reduce environmental footprint of entire supply chain by 40% (and relative to growth) by 2025 , vs. a 2015 baseline, reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2025 (within Scopes 1 to 3) (Kering Sustainability Strategy 2017). The Fashion Pact, involving 56 textile and fashion companies, also aims to: stop global warming, restore biodiversity and protect the oceans.

Metric(s): Biodiversity Impact Metric (CISL & NCIG, 2020)

Mitigation & Conservation actions: Kering are implementing a range of specific actions under the Mitigation & Conservation, and across their production systems and supply chains, which are detailed in their Biodiversity Strategy (2020). For example, they are committed to: avoiding negative impacts on biodiversity through only sourcing zero deforestation leather (refrain), minimising negative impacts on biodiversity though 100% organic cotton sourcing (reduce), restoring degraded ecosystems through the South Gobi sustainable cashmere program (restore) and supporting restoration and revitalisation of additional ecosystems outside of their supply footprint (renew). See four steps diagram below for details.

“How we solve the ongoing environmental crisis is likely the biggest challenge facing our generation. Given the scale of biodiversity loss sweeping the planet, we must take bold action. As businesses, we need to safeguard nature within our own supply chains, as well as champion transformative actions far beyond them to ensure that humanity operates within planetary boundaries.”

– François-Henri Pinault Chief Executive Officer, Kering (Kering Biodiversity Strategy)

Stage of implementation and associated outcomes:  Implementation stage – Kering Group has been implementing a sustainability strategy since 2017, with reductions of 14% in overall environmental impacts and 77% in green house gas emissions between 2015 and 2018. As of 2018, Kering Group also became entirely carbon neutral, in terms of operations and across sourcing and supply chain. The biodiversity strategy was newly launched in 2020, and is in early stages of implementation.

Needs and next steps: As a next step, Kering will develop an operational plan that stems from their biodiversity strategy. The plan will facilitate ongoing monitoring towards our commitments on an annual basis, enabling us to publicly report on key areas of progress.

Key References and resources: