Luxury group Kering has announced a new water strategy. It said launching a dedicated policy on water was “a pivotal stage” in its wider science-backed approach to sustainability. By Leatherbiz.

It has called the new initiative, its Water-Positive Strategy. This consists of three key programmes through which it will aim to deliver “on-the-ground transformation and water-positive outcomes”.

The first of these is to centre the group’s raw material sourcing on “materials that alleviate pressures on nature and water”. It said this would include increasing the volume of materials deriving from regenerative agriculture, which, it explained, will help reduce pollution and replenish watersheds.

It said this focus on materials would also include recycled fabrics and “innovative alternatives”.

Next, the Water-Positive Strategy will include a programme in which Kering will work with strategic suppliers to tackle shared challenges. Here, it said chrome-free and low-impact tanning agents would be part of its focus, based on the idea that these leather chemicals can help increase water efficiency and improve water availability and water quality in places where Kering suppliers manufacture leather.

The third strand of the strategy will be a programme of new, dedicated water-resilience laboratories. The group has said it will set these up in ten priority areas by 2035, in partnership with regional stakeholders, suppliers, other companies, local communities, and public authorities.

A first laboratory will launch this autumn in Tuscany, home to many of the tanneries that make leather for Kering and suppliers to those tanneries. The group said the role of these laboratories will be to “create momentum for a water-positive paradigm shift”.

Its chief sustainability officer, Marie-Claire Daveu, said on launching the strategy: “It is crucial that water commitments evolve from a ‘reductions-only’ approach to become water-positive, regenerating and replenishing water and ecosystems associated with all business activities.”

She said Kering’s new strategy would be transformative, and would deliver “measurable water-positive outcomes to enhance social, environmental and economic resilience, and contribute to building up the availability of clean water for all”.