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Kering ponders the future of sustainable luxury, releases progress report

Global luxury group Kering, which owns fashion and jewelry houses including Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, and Boucheron, has released the results of its sustainability progress report covering the years 2020 to 2023 – six years into the group’s announcement of its ‘Crafting Tomorrow’s Luxury’ strategy. 

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The progress report highlights a number of key updates implemented from 2020 to 2023, including the Kering group-wide ban on fur, and the creation of the Regenerative Fund for Nature and a EUR 300 million Climate Fund for Nature.

In terms of innovation, the group reported, among other items, partnerships with 226 startups, and investments into fashion resale platform Vestiaire Collective as well as lab-growing leather tech startup VitroLabs.

Kering, which earned a revenue of EUR20.4 billion in 2022, last week announced a commitment to decrease its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2035, on a 2021 baseline. 

Said Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability and institutional affairs officer at Kering: “To match our long-term vision to help drive luxury and fashion’s sustainability agenda, we have continued to evolve our sustainability strategy. It also perfectly encapsulates our spirit; we never stop pushing forward, and when our sustainability targets are in sight, we move the benchmark even further away.”

In February, Kering’s Gucci announced the launch of Circular Hub, the first hub for ‘circular luxury’ in Italy which will serve to advance the industry’s circular transformation. An open innovation platform for designing and manufacturing as well as producing new solutions, Gucci’s Circular Hub covers raw material sourcing, design, industrial partnerships, through to production optimisation and logistics. 

The activities of the hub, which is located in Tuscany, is planned to extend to Kering’s other brands and eventually to the rest of the industry. An initial estimate of the hub’s environmental impact associated with Gucci’s leather goods ecosystem demonstrates the possibility to reduce up to 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions currently being generated in the management of production waste. 

SEE ALSO: Kering reports 2022 revenue up despite mixed fourth quarter 

“Joining forces with Gucci for the Circular Hub not only is a testament of collective conviction within the Group, but also an ambitious example to pave the way for other players who will be happy to join in the future, in an open-source perspective,” Daveu added.