French luxury goods group Kering has laid out a set of commitments to minimise biodiversity loss across its global supply chains and create net positive conservation.
Published in its first biodiversity strategy, Kering, which owns the Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent brands, aims to have a net positive impact on biodiversity by 2025 by regenerating and protecting an area around six times the total land footprint of the company’s entire supply chain, all the way back to raw material production, within this timeframe.
The company has also committed to converting 1m hectares of farms and rangelands in its supply chain landscapes into regenerative agriculture by 2025. Kering will protect an additional 1m hectares of critical, “irreplaceable” habitat outside of its supply chain by 2025, through programmes that support biodiversity protection, carbon sequestration and livelihood improvements.
The group’s strategy is designed to encourage the prevention of biodiversity degradation, the promotion of sustainable and regenerative farming practices favouring soil health, and the protection of global ecosystems and forests that are vital for carbon sequestration.
To support the implementation of its strategy, Kering has launched the ‘Kering for Nature Fund: 1 Million Hectares for the Planet’ today (1 July), in partnership with Conservation International. The Fund will assist “promising regenerative agriculture projects” around the world, with the aim of bringing one million hectares of land under regenerative practices. It will focus on raw materials with the highest environmental impacts such as leather, cotton, cashmere, and wool.
The ultimate goal of the Fund is to help transform raw material production in the fashion industry and drive a shift towards farming practices that operate in harmony with natural ecosystems.
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By GlobalData“Thriving biodiversity is intrinsically linked to the long-term viability of our industry, and society more broadly,” says Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer and head of international institutional affairs, Kering. “Integrating a dedicated biodiversity strategy – which is now part of our wider sustainability strategy – into Kering’s day-to-day operations is pivotal for our contribution to bending the curve on biodiversity loss over the next years. Business has a serious role to play in shifting towards a “nature-positive” economy and ahead of the establishment of the Global Goals for biodiversity in 2021, it is important that Kering’s strategy aligns with the scientific community so that we are already on the right path and taking the actions that are urgently needed.”
In addition, Kering is to co-host a digital masterclass on the importance of integrating biodiversity into the core of business operations with the Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) today (1 July), with additional expertise from Conservation International.
