French luxury group PPR -- the company that currently owns brands like Gucci and Puma -- announced immediate and long-term plans for a sustainability overhaul to minimize environmental impact and, ultimately, provide social and environmental improvements over time, WWD reports.
PPR CEO François-Henri Pinault called a news conference in Paris to outline the initiative, called PPR Home. <a href="http://" target="_blank">As WWD reports, Pinault said:
"PPR Home is our group’s contribution to a better world, by developing innovative and sustainable initiatives for our different economic models that rely on our creativity and our imagination in order to influence our lifestyles and inspire others to follow us in the long term."
The plan is a huge step towards changing the way luxury brands do business in requiring the many brands under its umbrella -- including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga, among others -- to embrace sustainable alternatives.
Components of the plan include the launch of the Creative Sustainability Lab in conjunction with Cradle to Cradle, which will focus on product development according to tenets of sustainability and social consciousness across PPR's luxury brands within the Gucci Group and Puma; the complete offset of PPR's already greatly reduced carbon dioxide emissions in 2010; and the world's first environmental profits & loss (EP&L) statement, to be published by Puma in July.
According to the report, PPR identifies these measures as their first steps in reaching greater sustainability and social responsibility, and has brought on a team of 15 people to work with independent experts in charting the long-term course. Personnel changes began with Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz's recent appointment as PPR's chief sustainability officer, who told WWD the sportswear brand will collaborate on a line with Wilderness Holdings Ltd. in 2012, after purchasing a 20.1 percent stake in the eco-tourism and nature conservation company last year.
