This article titled “Luxury brands group PPR announces a five year sustainability plan” was written by Jo Confino for the Guardian Professional Network, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 27th April 2012 09.46 UTC
The luxury brands group PPR has followed through on its commitment to putting a value on eco-system services by announcing a series of environmental targets to reduce its footprint.
The five year plan, which covers all the company’s brands, ranging from Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen to Balenciaga and Stella McCartney, includes reductions of CO2, waste and water, the sourcing of raw materials and hazardous chemicals and materials.
PPR’s sports division Puma last year became the first company to publish an economic valuation of the environmental impacts caused by greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and water consumption along its entire supply chain. The group has committed to implementing an Environmental Profit & Loss Account (E P&L) by 2015 across all its businesses.
At the time, PPR made it clear that current accounting systems are responsible for degrading the planet’s eco-systems and irresponsibly depleting natural resources and needed to go through fundamental change.
The group says it wants to use the E P&L to “ultimately implement efficient and innovative initiatives to reduce the environmental impacts from the sourcing of raw materials, processing, manufacturing, and distribution of the Group’s products.”
In the meantime, the company has made several commitments, including ensuring that all its gold and diamonds will be sourced from operations that do not have a harmful impact on local communities, wildlife or the ecosystems which support them.
PPR controversially uses precious skins and fur but has committed to ensure they come from verified captive breeding operations or from wild, sustainably managed populations.
The company says that for crocodiles there are already norms in place as well as EU standards for furs. But the market in snakes is unregulated and PPR believes there needs to be more transparency and traceability in sourcing.
“Our pursuit of operating on a more sustainable level across all areas of our business is integral to our business plan and to the longevity of our businesses. The next five years are pivotal and we now have a clear view of what we want to achieve, and the actionable targets we need to take to get us there,” said Francois-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO, PPR.
“We are confident that this type of innovative, sustainability-driven approach will ultimately generate new business revenues from sustainable products and services and create new business models for us as a group.”
PPR is offsetting its global emissions from its direct operations via carbon credits purchased from Wildlife Works‘ REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) offsetting project in Kenya and is buying a 5% stake in the business.
The company says the investment fulfils one of its goals to invest in for-profit businesses that “incorporate biodiversity conservation and social concerns into their business model, resulting in net-positive social and environmental impacts.”
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