Patou

How sustainable is Patou?

This scree­ning has been done by Fai­rify on July 3^rd 2020

Patou is a ready-to-wear luxury fashion brand for women. Mai­son Jean Patou was foun­ded in 1914 and reborn under the new name Patou in 2019. This chan­ge was led by fashion desig­ner Gui­llau­me Henry. The brand is currently owned by LVMH. In con­trast to most other LVMH brands, Patou does offer some infor­ma­tion about its sus­tai­na­bi­lity on its own web­si­te. It pro­vi­des infor­ma­tion about its mate­rial ori­gins and sta­tes that more than a third of its pro­ducts are made out of more sus­tai­na­ble fibers. It doesn’t use fur, wool or leather. Besi­des that, it is wor­king towards a more envi­ron­men­tally-friendly supply chain and it’s impro­ving its pac­ka­ging. Neverthe­less, for most infor­ma­tion, we still have to resort to the sus­tai­na­bi­lity report of its mother com­pany.

LVMH, or Louis Vuit­ton – Moët Hen­nessy Cor­po­ra­tion, is the world’s big­gest luxury com­pany. The French com­pany owns 75 dif­fe­rent sub­si­dia­ries in six bran­ches, like wine, spi­rits, wat­ches, jewelry and fashion. Some of its hou­ses date back cen­tu­ries and carry a very rich heri­ta­ge. The total reve­nue of the­se hou­ses amoun­ted to €53.7 billion in 2019, and pro­vi­des work for over 163,000 emplo­yees. This review is based on LVMH’s per­for­man­ce in its fashion sec­tion, which is also its big­gest branch reve­nue wise.
LVMH doesn’t mea­su­re the emis­sions gene­ra­ted in its supply chains. It has a tar­get in pla­ce to have all pro­duc­tion sites cer­ti­fied for envi­ron­men­tal mana­ge­ment in 2020, which pro­vi­des the pos­si­bi­lity to start mea­su­ring and impro­ving envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce in its full supply chain. As it stands, the com­pany only reports on emis­sions gene­ra­ted in its owned faci­li­ties. Neverthe­less, the com­pany is taking some cli­ma­te action. It used 27% rene­wa­ble energy in its own faci­li­ties in 2018, and aims for 30% in 2020. It reques­ted every hou­se to impro­ve key envi­ron­men­tal effi­ciency by at least 10% by 2020 for water, was­te and energy con­sum­ption. The­se tar­gets are neces­sary and it’s good to see them imple­men­ted, but the com­pany doesn’t pro­vi­de any sig­ni­fi­cant data on its per­for­man­ce.
LVMH laun­ched the COP21 inter­nal car­bon fund, which is an inter­nal fund that all hou­ses con­tri­bu­te to. At the same time, the car­bon fund pro­vi­des resour­ces for pro­jects within LVMH whe­re it’s nee­ded most and has been used for pro­jects like a bio­mass-fue­led power plant for Bel­ve­de­re and a solar powe­red wine cellar for Chan­don India. Whi­le the­se are great pro­jects that con­tri­bu­te to the impro­ve­ment of LVMH, the com­pany has to struc­tu­rally chan­ge its envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce to make a sig­ni­fi­cant impact. This can be achie­ved through the use of a ser­vi­ce like the Higg Envi­ron­men­tal modu­le that can effi­ciently mea­su­re envi­ron­men­tal per­for­man­ce and allows for a data-dri­ven approach, which can effec­ti­vely redu­ce its cli­ma­te impact. Sin­ce supply chain emis­sions are not trac­ked yet, the­re can’t be any mea­ning­ful reduc­tion tar­gets that the com­pany can aim for. Currently, its repor­ting shows that energy con­sum­ption as well as was­te, par­ti­cu­larly toxic was­te, is gro­wing. All in all, the­re are more than enough indi­ca­tors that imply the com­pany has to step up its envi­ron­men­tal game.
Another major fac­tor that can redu­ce LVHM’s impact lies in its mate­rial sour­cing. Currently, the com­pany isn’t trans­pa­rent about what per­cen­ta­ges or num­bers it uses for its total pro­duc­tion, and tra­cea­bi­lity is very little. This is an indi­ca­tor that its mate­rials are gene­rally unsus­tai­na­ble. The com­pany reports that, in 2018, 15% of its cot­ton was sour­ced through the Bet­ter Cot­ton Initia­ti­ve, but this doesn’t pro­vi­de any details for other fibers. In terms of ani­mal mate­rials, there’s more infor­ma­tion avai­la­ble, but it’s very worri­so­me. The com­pany sour­ces 48% of leather from the Leather Wor­king Group, which means that about half of its leather is not cer­ti­fied. It also uses wool without sta­ting its sour­ces. Even more impor­tantly, the com­pany uses mate­rials from exo­tic ani­mals. Luxury is often defi­ned by the use of rare mate­rials. In gene­ral, the­se mate­rials pose risks, and this is cer­tainly the case with LVMH. The com­pany uses cro­co­di­le leather, skin from sna­kes and lizards, and furs from foxes, racoons and other exo­tic ani­mals. The­se mate­rials are for­bid­den by almost any other fashion com­pany, but still remain at lar­ge within LVMH.
The com­pany has a Code of Con­duct, but doesn’t pro­vi­de any rele­vant data about third par­ties con­duc­ting social audits or the per­for­man­ce of the­se audits. Sin­ce LVMH has not published a list of fac­to­ries or mate­rial sup­pliers, pro­duct ori­gins are a mys­tery. Publishing whe­re its fac­to­ries are loca­ted is the first step towards trans­pa­rency. Becau­se this has not been achie­ved yet and LVMH doesn’t pro­vi­de any rele­vant infor­ma­tion about third-par­ties audi­ting its supply chain, the­re is a high risk of vio­la­tion of labor rights in its pro­duc­tion faci­li­ties.
It may make sen­se for a com­pany the size of LVMH to con­duct audits inter­nally, deve­lop its own sys­tems or look for inter­nal solu­tions in gene­ral. But with such a huge num­ber of brands, supply chains, fac­to­ries and wor­kers wor­king together to pro­du­ce LVMH pro­ducts, the impact the com­pany has is gigan­tic. Espe­cially sin­ce the com­pany pro­du­ces luxury pro­ducts that go for high pri­ces, LVMH should be able to show that it ope­ra­tes in a res­pon­si­ble way. With the sour­cing of rare mate­rials from high-risk coun­tries and a gene­ral lack of trans­pa­rency in its repor­ting, this is currently cer­tainly not the case.

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