PARIS — Kering has a new standard for its sustainability goals. The Balenciaga and Gucci parent company has adopted the Science Based Targets Network’s goals for both fresh water and land.
The luxury conglomerate is among the first three companies and the only one in fashion to adopt the new standards, introduced by the Global Commons Alliance, which describes itself as a growing coalition of scientists, philanthropists, civil society groups, businesses and innovators.
This follows a yearlong pilot program to address nature loss within the ecosystems where the companies and their suppliers operate.
It will apply to its direct operations, including Kering-owned tanneries and factories, as well as upstream suppliers, with an initial focus on the Arno basin in Tuscany, where most of the group’s tanneries and supplier tanneries are located. Kering has set a target of reducing freshwater use by 21 percent by 2030, and will set similar targets for other basin sites in the coming months.
The new targets will also aim to reduce the luxury group’s land footprint and to engage in landscape initiatives to mitigate nature loss across its value chain. It aims to reduce its land footprint by 3 percent by 2030 from its 2022 use, and to improve ecological and social conditions through regenerative agriculture across sourcing landscapes of 1.7 million acres.
The company has committed to having 100 percent of its leather sourced from land not converted from a natural ecosystem or deforested for the grazing of cows, which will apply to European leather by 2025 and global sourcing by 2030.
Kering plans to continue its use of certifications for its sourcing downstream of key commodities such as wood and rubber, and to continue its efforts to promote regenerative agriculture practices in its supply chain.
“Setting and adopting science-based targets for nature was the next necessary step to complement and enhance Kering’s longstanding efforts to protect and restore biodiversity,” said Kering chief sustainability officer Marie-Claire Daveu.
“Land and water are critically interlinked and we are proud to be the first company in the fashion industry, and across all sectors globally, to adopt both land and fresh water science-based targets for nature. Systemic transformation is absolutely essential — reducing and restoring fresh water and land impacts according to SBTN’s comprehensive methodology ensures standardization, which will help catalyze the way forward for the world’s business community,” she said.
Kering has been part of the Science Based Targets Network since 2020. Joining the group in the first cohort of adopters for the nature targets are biopharma company GSK and building materials firm Holcim.
“Science Based Targets for Nature offers a fundamental shift toward a vital new era of corporate sustainability, where companies are setting clear targets to directly act within key sourcing landscapes and watersheds. This achievement signals not only a triumph for the companies involved but a transformative new approach for nature positivity in the private sector,” said Michael Burgass, cofounder and director of sustainability consultancy Biodiversify, which advised Kering on the project.
“With global nature loss accelerating at an unprecedented rate, it’s clear that urgent, decisive action is required from governments and business alike to reverse and halt this trend. For companies, this means understanding their material impacts and dependencies on nature, and taking ambitious science-based action to address and mitigate those impacts,” said Science Based Targets Network executive director Erin Billman.
The announcement was made during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP16, in Cali, Colombia.
At COP 15 in 2022, 200 world governments signed the Global Biodiversity Framework agreement to halt biodiversity loss and destruction of the planet’s ecosystems with the goal of protecting 30 percent of the planet’s nature by 2030, in addition to pledging funds to repair degraded ecosystems.
Science-based targets for nature are focused on biodiversity and nature loss in accordance with the Global Biodiversity Framework, designed to complement the existing science-based targets on climate, which are greenhouse gas emission reduction goals set by businesses. The new targets address key drivers of nature loss in the ecosystems of the companies and their suppliers.
Discussions at this year’s edition of the U.N.-backed biodiversity conference, which concludes Friday, have so far stalled with lack of agreement on how to achieve major targets.
