Unfazed by global uncertainty, Marie-Claire Daveu is open-sourcing Kering’s ambitious environmental strategies, inviting the entire fashion industry to help build a more resilient and beautiful future.
The world today is in an unprecedented state, partly in thanks—among other factors—to the return of President Trump to office. Since the start of the year, he has held the world hostage with his highly erratic and unpredictable nature, sending financial markets into a meltdown when he imposed a slew of steep tariffs on foreign imports. On his first day back in office, he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement for a second time, believing that climate change is a “hoax.”
Marie-Claire Daveu, however, remains unfazed. Daveu is the Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer at Kering, the French luxury group that owns Gucci, Balenciaga, and Saint Laurent. In fact, she’s optimistic enough that she’s speaking with Mission from New York City, suitcase packed and ready for Las Vegas, where she will attend the JCK jewelry trade event. There, she will announce the four finalists of the Kering Generation Award x Jewelry, a global competition encouraging the transformation of waste into desirable jewelry.
Before joining Kering in 2012, Daveu was a young woman from Brittany, passionate about animals and natural ecosystems. She knew from the beginning that she wanted to work in the public sector, in order to serve the general interest. This led her to ENGREF, the National School of Rural Engineering, Water Resources and Forestry (now part of AgroParisTech), where she trained as an engineer in environmental management. “One day, after working in the French government, I decided to go on the ground, and that’s why I joined the private sector and I joined Kering,” she says.
“One day, after working in the French government, I decided to go on the ground, and that’s why I joined the private sector and I joined Kering.”
Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer at Kering.
In her role at Kering, Daveu recognizes the increasing urgency of the climate crisis. Her determination, despite the current political and economic climate, is such that she is now ramping up sustainability efforts at the company. She oversees the implementation of impressive schemes, such as the newly unveiled ‘Water-Positive Strategy,’ which goes beyond merely reducing Kering’s impact on freshwater ecosystems by aiming to actually restore and replenish them in partnership with local communities. “Water is key for life, but it’s also key for the textile industry. From the raw materials through to all the processes such as tanning, dyeing—everything uses up water,” Daveu says.
Indeed, the fashion industry is notorious for its extremely exploitative relationship with water. A single pair of jeans takes 3,781 liters of water to produce, and freshwater systems are often polluted with dyes, chemicals, and runoff during production, making this new strategy appear incredibly ambitious. Whether Kering will be able to achieve its goals through this strategy remains to be seen, but Daveu sees no other choice than to experiment and attempt.
“Water is key for life, but it’s also key for the textile industry. From the raw materials through to all the processes such as tanning, dyeing—everything uses up water.”
Throughout our interview, she repeatedly emphasizes the point that the resilience of fashion’s supply chains is fundamental to the industry’s survival. In other words, there’s no fashion on a burning planet. “We started with the EP&L,” she says, referring to an annual account and analysis of a company’s entire environmental impact. “Our environmental footprint was a first step. Now we want to go into more detail to understand better, to make the link, and to be able to follow the progress, because what’s important is also to make a difference. And for me, what’s key is to engage the community.”
However, the company is infamously going through a crisis. Kering’s shares have lost about 47% of their value over the past year, and the German arms maker Rheinmetall, boosted by Europe’s war footing, has taken Kering’s place on the Euro Stoxx 50. The company has also, for the first time, appointed a new CEO—Luca de Meo, an experienced reviver of European car brands. This begs the question of whether Kering can convince shareholders of this continued and significant investment in sustainability, but Daveu argues that because the company is still partly family-owned, they have the benefit of thinking long-term without intense pressure for short-term financial results from public shareholders.
“If you consume less energy, less water, and you reuse some raw materials, it makes sense for the business. It’s also about profitability, you save money.”
After all, market conditions fluctuate. In 2023 for example, French luxury and beauty magnates surpassed the usual U.S. tech industry suspects in being named the world’s richest man and woman. She also emphasizes that sustainability is an investment rather than a cost. “If you imagine saying, ‘Okay, I want to save money, I will cut costs,’ it would be a little bit stupid because this kind of policy and commitment is for the long run,” she says. “So if you cut and then start, then stop, then start, then stop, you don’t have any results. What’s important is to keep a clear vision and a clear implementation.” She adds that saving money comes from being sustainable itself, rather than from cutting sustainability out of the business. “If you consume less energy, less water, and you reuse some raw materials, it makes sense for the business. It’s also about profitability, you save money.”
In addition to the importance of resilient supply chains, Daveu also makes a case for consumer expectations when it comes to luxury items. “When you sell a luxury product, all the sustainability aspects are part of the DNA of the product,” she says, adding that this is a strong expectation not only from their clients but also from Gen Z, employees, and investors who have “a risk management approach.” She explains that Kering strives for each product to be as sustainable as possible, so that “when [a consumer buys] a luxury product from the Kering brands, they have their savoir-faire, their heritage, craftsmanship, the quality of the raw materials, but at the same time, they were produced paying attention to the people and to the planet.”
When it comes to the inevitably smaller environmental impact of Kering’s luxury brands compared to the largest fast-fashion companies, Daveu is optimistic that Kering’s initiatives will inspire others. The company open-sources the frameworks, principles, and guidelines it develops for its brands, making them accessible to anyone, including competitors. She also brings up the Fashion Pact, which Kering helped bring together at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron in 2019.
The pact has been signed by over 60 major brands and suppliers who commit to various climate targets based on the Paris Agreement, and share best practices to achieve them. “We see a really big difference. In the Fashion Pact, we don’t have only luxury brands … we also have Nike, Adidas, Inditex,” she says. “Things are really moving.” For her, the biggest challenges ahead are “a question of speed and a question of putting things to scale,” she admits. “A pilot project is great to start and to learn from, but afterwards, you have to be able to develop it at a bigger scale and speed up its implementation.”
Daveu doesn’t let herself take too much credit for the transformation at Kering since she joined in 2012. She credits CEO François-Henri Pinault with his personal involvement in sustainability and his willingness to implement change. “I won’t say that life is always easy everyday. But what is key in the company is governance. Governance is key when you want to change.” She says that Pinault understands the importance of sustainability and knows it’s good for business. “As soon as you have this strong commitment, it’s very important to align the whole company. That means at the corporate level, at the brand level … What’s key is to manage it with quantitative targets, KPIs, a calendar, and so forth.” She points to the increasing effects of climate change, such as the recent fires in California, as an urgent indicator of why businesses should be alarmed. “You have to adapt your business … There is no choice. That’s why internally we try to show that it makes sense at [Kering].”
“I won’t say that life is always easy everyday. But what is key in the company is governance. Governance is key when you want to change.”
Asked what advice she’d give to others leading sustainability efforts in less willing organizations, she emphasizes the value of staying resilient and never giving up. “You have to continue to push. Really continue to push to ensure that the companies are following through their transformation,” she advises. “Be optimistic, be pragmatic, and never give up.” And as for her proudest achievement at Kering so far? “Banning fur,” she says immediately, without a hint of hesitation.
Homepage image of Marie-Claire Daveu by Carole Bellaiche. Above the two winners of the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry. Top left, Lee Min Seo (student, Korea) and top right Ianyan (startup, China). All imagery courtesy of Kering.
