‘We have the greatest opportunity to replace conventional, unsustainable systems with innovative and sustainable ones’

It should come as no sur­prise that fash­ion can be con­sid­ered the sec­ond-largest pol­lut­ing sec­tor and con­tributes to cli­mate change. In fact, a new study illus­trat­ed that the glob­al appar­el and footwear indus­tries account for 8 per cent of the world’s green­house gas emis­sions, almost as much as the total car­bon impact of the Euro­pean Union.

What is per­haps sur­pris­ing is that our indus­try has only recent­ly become more aware of the sig­nif­i­cance of the breadth of its envi­ron­men­tal impacts. Con­verse­ly, there has been recog­ni­tion for decades of the need to improve rad­i­cal­ly the often deplorable work­ing con­di­tions in fashion’s sup­ply chains.

In the busi­ness of fash­ion, like all com­mer­cial endeav­ours, there has been a his­tor­i­cal dis­con­nect between per­ceived busi­ness needs and a more regen­er­a­tive, humane approach. More than ever it is crit­i­cal to change this par­a­digm. In a world where we are pass­ing our envi­ron­men­tal plan­e­tary bound­aries, busi­ness and sus­tain­abil­i­ty can­not remain decou­pled.

In my view we have the great­est oppor­tu­ni­ty in our life­times to replace the con­ven­tion­al, unsus­tain­able sys­tems that have been entrenched for cen­turies with inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able ones.

While it is true that many sec­tors are wrestling with how to inte­grate sus­tain­able prac­tices, fash­ion also has a moral oblig­a­tion to be a leader in becom­ing account­able, eth­i­cal and respon­si­ble to our envi­ron­ment, and to con­tribute to the greater good.

We can help build cli­mate-smart and resilient agri­cul­ture to sup­port our raw mate­r­i­al needs, effi­cient, low-impact pro­duc­tion sys­tems, and fair work­ing con­di­tions that pro­vide a foun­da­tion for thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties. This will not only result in the improved sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our prod­ucts, it will sup­port sus­tain­able devel­op­ment glob­al­ly through oper­a­tional ini­tia­tives, from the fur­thest sup­ply chain tiers to design.

In short, we need to refash­ion fash­ion for the future; to move away from a “take, make and waste” econ­o­my towards a cir­cu­lar one where resources are con­served.

This is how Kering’s chief exec­u­tive François-Hen­ri Pin­ault views the future of fash­ion in our group. And truth be told, what oth­er major indus­try can shine the light of excite­ment and glam­our on this daunt­ing mis­sion like the lux­u­ry sec­tor?

Lux­u­ry is in a unique posi­tion where we influ­ence and set the trends and aspi­ra­tions in fash­ion and lifestyle. And so, just as lux­u­ry sets these trends, we have a crit­i­cal role in set­ting the stan­dard for sus­tain­abil­i­ty across the fash­ion indus­try.

At Ker­ing we are find­ing and imple­ment­ing solu­tions-based approach­es that will estab­lish a new, sus­tain­able lux­u­ry ecosys­tem and accel­er­ate the uptake of a “fash­ion­able” sta­tus quo that aligns with beau­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, qual­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Indeed, this is no easy task. And we can’t do it alone. As an indus­try, we need to accept a shared respon­si­bil­i­ty and shift towards more col­lab­o­ra­tive and entre­pre­neur­ial think­ing. We need also to under­stand that trans­paren­cy of infor­ma­tion sets the stage to look at oppor­tu­ni­ties, and should not just be seen through the lim­it­ed lens of risk and com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tage.

Open-sourc­ing new ideas will fuel sus­tain­able inno­va­tion and cre­ate busi­ness val­ue. It is also essen­tial to edu­cate the next gen­er­a­tion enter­ing our indus­try. They will be tomorrow’s lead­ers who will dri­ve change and embed these new fron­tiers of sus­tain­abil­i­ty that we are only just dis­cov­er­ing today.

We have choic­es like nev­er before and it is clear to me that we, as an indus­try and as indi­vid­u­als, need to move for­ward and con­tribute with cre­ativ­i­ty, inge­nu­ity and inno­va­tion for a tru­ly sus­tain­able future.