Kering is a French luxury goods group, owner of brands like Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Gucci, Bottega Veneta but also Puma and Volcom.

As a group, Kering has a sustainability department, encouraging its brands to contribute to a better world -- economically, socially as well as ecologically. Therefore the group has introduced several general and more specific goals and projects regarding sustainability.

One of those is to implement the ‘Environmental Profit and Loss (E P&L) account’, a tool which measures and quantifies the impact of each part of the supply chain. By putting a monetary value on every aspect, the tool facilitates the comparison between sustainability costs and other business costs.

The Materials Innovation Lab is a second project. This is an extensive library containing more than 1500 sustainable fabrics and a team of technical experts that is made available to every member of the Kering group. The idea is to share all innovations and green solutions with every Kering brand.

In addition, Kering announced a set of more general sustainability targets:

• Evaluating their key suppliers every 2 years to see if they adhere to Kering’s code of conduct.
• Reducing carbon emissions, waste and water usage resulting from the production of their products and services.
• Making all of their collections PVC-free by 2016 and ensuring all hazardous chemicals have been phased out and eliminated from their production by 2020.
• Using only paper and packaging from certified, sustainably managed forests, with a minimum of 50% recycled content.

The individual Kering brands obviously also take action; check this list to read all about their specific projects.

Flanders DC interviewed Michael Beutler, Kering's Director of Sustainability Operations, on Fashion Talks 2015. In the interview, Beutler explained in depth which measures the Kering group takes to limit the ecological foot print of the brands they carry.