What to Watch: Luxury Players Up the Ante in Quest for Sustainability

Forget handbag wars: A new battlefront has opened among luxury rivals — sustainability — and it’s widely perceived as a win-win for the planet and all its inhabitants. This new game of one-upmanship was sparked last July, when LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton revealed a minority investment in Stella McCartney, who had built a reputation as the industry’s pre-eminent eco-conscious designer during a 17-year joint venture with Kering. Her surprise switch of luxury camps seemed to cue a race for bragging rights in the green movement, and to foreshadow greater efforts among European luxury players to clean up their supply chains. This movement was front-and-center at last weekend’s G7 meeting in Biarritz, France where a Kering-led group of 32 signed a “fashion pact” geared toward sustainability efforts. “I don’t see many negatives in a race to become better at producing responsibly, answering the wishes of a new consumer generation, protecting the planet and coming across as being good citizens,” commented Erwan Rambourg, global co-head of consumer and retail research at HSBC Securities. “Competing for who can be the healthiest and the most exquisite — that’s a great competition,” agreed William McDonough, cofounder of Fashion for Good, a prominent speaker on sustainability, and coauthor of the

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