What is Balenciaga, Gucci and Saint Laurent’s owner Kering doing to make fashion greener?
Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of luxury goods group, is at current G7 summit in France to rally global fashion firms to sign up to sustainability pact
Fashion industry leaders – at the behest of French President Emmanuel Macron – have joined the world’s political leaders, including US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at the current 45th Group of Seven summit to present new commitments for improving their impact on climate change, biodiversity and oceans.
Yet turning around the industry’s growing environmental costs in absolute terms is still far from sight, which means tough decisions are needed.
Kering, the Paris-based international luxury goods group, which owns Saint Laurent, Gucci and Balenciaga, has been leading the way.
We shouldn’t wait for people to require us to use different materials before figuring out how. It’s up to us to come up with products that are respectful of the environment
Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, has been working to rally global fashion companies around a new sustainability pact.
Macron put the issue on the agenda of the three-day G7 summit, which he has been hosting in the French seaside town of Biarritz.
Pinault has been trying to get companies to sign on to targets that could include eliminating single-use plastics and accelerating their transition to renewable energy.
“You shouldn’t underestimate the work that’s being done at different companies,” Pinault said before the summit began on Saturday.