Kering commits entire group to carbon-neutrality

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 24, 2019

Just weeks after Kering announced that Gucci is now carbon-neutral, the luxury group said Tuesday that the whole organisation is set to become carbon-neutral too within its own operations and across the entire supply chain. 

Its next step is to offset its annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 2018, as well as working to reduce those emissions. It's a key move for such a major player in the luxury sector and one that we're likely to see from many more businesses in the months and years ahead.

“When it comes to climate change, we can no longer wait to take real action,” said CEO and Chairman François-Henri Pinault. “We all need to step up as businesses and account for the GHG emissions that we generate in total. Kering is committing to become completely carbon-neutral as a group across all our operations and supply chains. While we focus on avoiding and reducing our GHG emissions to meet our Science-Based Target, we will offset all our remaining emissions and support the conservation of vital forests and biodiversity around the world.”

It has been offsetting some GHG emissions since 2011 and since then has been using its Environmental Profit and Loss (EP&L) accounting to analyse the environmental impact it’s making across its operations. This has allowed it to launch “customised supply chain initiatives and efficiency programs to effectively avoid and reduce its emissions”.

It’s also set that Science-Based Target to reduce all its GHG emissions related to its own operations and supply chain by 50% by 2025. This has already impacted its raw materials and manufacturing and has led to the reduction of 30% carbon intensity in its stores since 2015. 

The company is increasing the conversion to renewable energy and 100% of its energy consumption is renewable in a few countries so far, although the figure is 77% for Europe and 67% for the group overall.

Other initiatives include the Clean by Design program for textile mills which translates into 12% CO2 savings a year.