Climate week and LIFE 360:
The new initiatives by which LVMH carries out its environment-friendly principles and launches its new rallying cry
“BE THE CHANGE!”
“Be the change!”
With these words the famous luxury group LVMH has introduced the new environmental protection’s program: LIFE 360 (Initiatives For the Environment for the next 3,6 and 10 years). Through this initiative the Maison wants to create innovative work policies that could also be time sustainable.
Therefore, LVMH is carrying out highly ambitious environment-friendly principles by setting some climate goals. For instance, all group sites will use 100% renewable energy and will dispose of fossil-based virgin plastic in packaging by 2026. For the French company owned by the Arnault family, the environmental issue is therefore a topic of primary importance.
In particular, the most important LIFE 360 topics are:
Climate, biodiversity, creative circularity and transparency.
The aim of the program is to reduce the environmental pollution caused by LVMH.
The initiative was born, first of all, from the necessity to help the modern society to face the climate change and secondly, from the constraint to sensitize not only the customers, but also partner and employees.
The global expansion that characterizes the Maison, made possible for LVMH to organize a special online event in which 160.000 employees were involved, together with some well-known personalities of Fashion including creative directors, senior LVMH executives and members of different LVMH brands.
In detail, a climate week has been set up in which there was a chance to talk about the key topics of LIFE 360.
The event in question took place from 8-11 December. The various meetings included the exchange of ideas, doubts and suggestions that guests decided to share in order to play an active role in the realization of a more sustainable luxury environment.
Over the four days of the climate week, different themes have been discussed in turn accompanied by several characters.
The first day has been dedicated to biodiversity.
From the meeting, it emerged that all LVMH brands are particularly worried about the prosperity of biodiversity since the latter also depends on the climate regulation. Nowadays, further increases in temperature could negatively affect the eco-system.
And if the situation does not improve over the next years, the eco-system deterioration could create devastating consequences for both humans and other animal or plant species.
The second day of the climate week concerned the carbon offsetting.
From the online discussion emerged that, in order to respect the trajectory set by the Paris Agreement, aimed at stabilizing global warming at under 2°C, greenhouse gas emissions must be brought to zero by the end of the 21st century.
The French group is constantly facing these environmental challenges.
In fact, carbon offsetting, related to boutiques and production sites, has already been reduced to 25%.
Moreover, LVMH is focusing its efforts on emissions that do not come directly from manufacturing, but they come from other links in the product lifecycle – sourcing of raw materials, transport to stores or customers, etc.
Moving on with our week, only during the third day there has been a focus on the specific position of the luxury within environmental pollution.
In this regard, Antoine Arnault, LVMH communications manager, claimed that they are not a fashion group, but instead, they represent a luxury group.
And this is the reason why the holdings are far from the world’s most polluting industry.
In fact, LVMH carbon footprint represents under 0.5% of the total carbon emissions of the fashion industry. The luxury sector, therefore, acts for the fashion industry’s most sustainable segment.
The Group brought together four Creative Directors from its Maisons – Felipe Oliveira Baptista, Creative Director of Kenzo, Kim Jones, Dior Men’s Creative Director, Jonathan Anderson, Creative Director of Loewe and Stella McCartney, Creative Director of her eponymous brand. These Ceos created their sustainable luxury’s vision by using different strategies; for instance Jonathan Anderson created the upcycled collection Eye/Loewe/Nature, Stella McCartney built a strong relationship with Evrnu, a textile innovation company and Kenzo started a partnership with WWF.
Finally, the Climate Week’s success was also confirmed on the last day by the LIFE in Stores Awards. The recognition for the best initiatives that support progress and innovation, by increasing the environmental development, went to the following brands:
–Envelope Design and Energy Management: Louis Vuitton, Florence
–Lighting and Interior Design: Bvlgari, Milan Montenapoleone
–Interior Air Quality : Loro Piana, Munich
–Maintenance: Berluti, Paris Saint-Honoré
–Progression (special category) : Christian Dior
The climate week came to a close with these winners!
Sources:
https://www.lvmh.it/notizie-documenti/notizie/in-occasione-del-5-anniversario-dellaccordo-di-parigi-lvmh-mobilita-i-suoi-collaboratori-per-lanciare-una-nuova-strategia-ambientale/