Kering discloses first results of the use phase and end of life environmental impacts of its products

Historically the Environmental Profit & Loss account (EP&L) measures and quantifies environmental impacts from all Kering’s business activities from raw material production to stores. In order to tackle the measurement of the use phase and end of life environmental impact, Kering launched in October 2019 the first major survey of its kind and captured the behaviour patterns of more than 3000 luxury fashion consumers across France, United Kingdom, Italy, China, the USA and Japan. Participants answered a wide panel of questions on representative products they had purchased including on their frequency of use, their products life length, and on care behaviours.

 

Thanks to this survey, Kering managed to measure the use phase and end of life impacts, within its EP&L, which represented 8% of the total life cycle impacts. The majority of the use and end of life impact is focused in the use phase (98%), with the largest environmental impact being greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Kering also intend to explore the results of the pilot further to identify areas of material impact, where targeted interventions would help to reduce the EP&L value. For example, for the ready-to-wear product category the use phase and end of life impacts make up 23% of the total lifecycle impact (compared to 8% as the average across all categories). Possible interventions could include a customer outreach programme or product care labels to build consumers awareness around how use phase activity choices influence the environmental impact of a product.