Why is water becoming strategic for fashion and luxury?
In the luxury sector, the value of a piece is traditionally measured by its craftsmanship, materials, rarity, and enduring appeal. A new indicator has now been added to this framework: water. On April 28, 2025, Kering unveiled its first Water Strategy, with an ambition that goes beyond simply reducing consumption: to achieve a net positive impact on water in its priority areas by 2035, and then globallyby 2050.The group intends to take action across its entire value chain, from raw materials to tanneries, from suppliers to directly operated sites.
For Kering, the challenge is therefore no longer simply to consume less. It is also about better managing the resource, reducing pollution, restoring watersheds, and strengthening the resilience of the regions where luxury goods are produced and processed. Water is present throughout almost the entire fashion supply chain.
Water plays a role from the initial production of certain agricultural raw materials, and then in numerous processing stages: fiber preparation, textile dyeing, washing, finishing, and leather tanning. Its importance, therefore, extends far beyond the tap in a workshop or shop. In its own environmental analysis, Kering identifies water scarcity, water pollution, and substances of concern as key material challenges. The Group monitors the impacts from raw material sourcing to industrial operations, including tanneries, weaving, knitting, and dyeing.
This represents a significant shift in perspective. A liter of water saved at a corporate headquarters does not necessarily have the same environmental value as a liter conserved in a region experiencing water stress. The strategy therefore becomes territorial: understanding watersheds, identifying the most sensitive areas, and then concentrating investments where the impact can be most significant.
From reduction to a "water-positive" approach
Kering's water strategy moves beyond a purely accounting-based view of water conservation. While reducing withdrawals remains essential, the Group also aims to restore natural cycles and associated ecosystems. To this end, Kering structures its approach around the link between climate, nature, and water : resource scarcity, climate change, and biodiversity loss cannot be treated as three separate issues. This philosophy aligns with a broader evolution in sustainable luxury . The sector is gradually shifting from a "lower impact" approach to a focus on resource regeneration. Luxe Daily also analyzes this shift through Kering's land regeneration fund , where regenerative agriculture becomes a lever for intervening at the very source of raw materials.
For water, Kering translates this ambition into three complementary programs.
| Program | Objective | A challenge for luxury |
|---|---|---|
| Water-Positive Stewardship | Preventing, reducing and improving water management in operations and at strategic suppliers | Tanning, industrial processes, water efficiency, waste quality |
| Water-Positive Raw Materials | Develop materials that exert less pressure on water and promote regenerative agriculture | Leather, textile fibers, recycled materials and sourcing |
| Water Resilience Labs | Restoring freshwater ecosystems with local stakeholders in ten priority watersheds | Territorial resilience, industrial cooperation and biodiversity |
Water-Positive Stewardship: taking action in workshops and at suppliers
The first pillar is better managing the impacts directly related to manufacturing. The Water-Positive Stewardship concerns both Kering's own operations and those of its strategic suppliers. The Group cites, in particular, the use of lower-impact tanning technologies, including chrome-free tanning, as well as processes designed to improve water efficiency and water quality.
This dimension is essential for luxury leather goods. Leather requires a series of technical transformations where the control of chemicals, baths and waste is as important as the volume of water used.
The objective is therefore not simply "less water", but better water : extraction, quality, reuse, pollution and basin context must be considered together.
This research aligns with work being done elsewhere in the sector on materials and processes. Luxe Daily's feature on sustainable luxury according to Stella McCartney, in particular, demonstrates how the environmental performance of a material depends as much on its origin as on its processing and its ability to be rigorously industrialized.
The Arno, a full-scale laboratory for Kering's water strategy
The Arno River basinin Tuscanyoccupies a central place in Kering's strategy. This region concentrates a significant part of theItalian leather ecosystem, as well as the Group's tanneries and those of its suppliers. As early as October 30, 2024, Kering indicated that its first scientific target related to freshwater quantity would focus on this basin. The 2024 Universal Registration Document already set out two particularly specific targets:
- reduce Kering's direct freshwater withdrawals from the Arno basin to 200 million litres per year by 2030, representing a 21% reduction compared to the 2018-2022 average;
- reduce surface water withdrawals from upstream operations in the supply chain in this same basin to 471 million litres per year by 2030, also down 21% compared to the 2018-2022 reference.
These figures give another dimension to the environmental discourse: performance becomes localized, measurable and dated.
Water Resilience Labs: thinking about water on a territorial scale
One of Kering 's most impactful initiatives is called Water Resilience Labs . The idea is to move beyond managing water on a company-by-company basis, given that a watershed is shared by industries, farmers, local authorities, and residents. These labs will bring together suppliers, neighboring businesses, public authorities, local communities, and other stakeholders to develop joint solutions for restoring freshwater ecosystems , ensuring resource availability, and improving water quality. Kering plans to establish a lab in each of its ten priority watersheds by 2035 .
The official roadmap planned for an initial deployment in the Arno basin in 2025. Kering's 2025 report now mentions Water Resilience Labs in Italy and South Africa, a sign of a gradual expansion of the system.
This is probably where the most interesting aspect of this strategy lies: moving from the optimization of a workshop to the resilience of a watershed.
Water-Positive Raw Materials: Acting even before manufacturing
A significant portion of the environmental footprint of luxury goods originates before the raw materials even arrive in a workshop. Cotton, wool, cashmere, leather: the conditions under which a material is grown or raised influence the soil, biodiversity, and water cycles.
The Water-Positive Raw Materials program therefore aims to prioritize more recycled materials, innovative solutions, and resources from regenerative agriculture . The stated objective is to reduce pressures on nature, limit pollution, and contribute to the quantifiable restoration of watersheds.
This approach directly extends Kering's biodiversity strategy. The Group has been working for several years on regenerating agricultural land in its supply chains; its 2025 assessment shows that more thanone million hectares of agricultural land are being converted to regenerative practices. The issue of water can therefore no longer be separated from that of soil. Healthier soil retains water better, limits certain erosion phenomena, and contributes to the resilience of a landscape.
Gucci: Water management extends all the way to the suppliers
The Group's strategy also takes shape in the requirements applied by its Houses. In its official principles of sustainable development, Gucci notably requires its suppliers to assess water-related risks at their production sites and to have management programs covering both the quantity and quality of water.
The House encourages, where possible, closed-loop systems, the use of rainwater, and monitoring of consumption and pollution. Gucci also documents its Scrap-less, which focuses on optimizing leather cutting before certain tanning stages. For 2025, the House reports that this system has saved 715,000 liters of water, along with energy and chemical savings.
These examples are more substantial than a general promise of "sobriety": they show how the water issue can be addressed down to the level of the industrial process.
Textile innovation: reducing water without sacrificing creativity
Kering's water strategy also extends to material innovation. During the S|STYLE 2025 Denim Lab , supported by Kering's Material Innovation Lab , designers worked with dyeing, washing and finishing techniques designed to significantly reduce water consumption and the use of problematic chemicals.
In 2026, Kering also presented AMSilk at Balenciaga , a material for which the Group claims 97% lower water consumption than conventional silk in this application. This type of innovation raises a central question for the luxury sector: how to preserve the feel, drape, color, and emotional appeal of a product while radically altering the resources required for its production? This is the same challenge seen with Prada's Re-Nylon and the rise of circular materials : sustainability only becomes credible in the luxury sector when it meets the same high standards as the product itself.
By 2025, Kering is already measuring initial progress
The most recent report provides a particularly interesting indicator. In its 2025 Universal Registration Document, Kering reports a 20% reduction in water withdrawals from its tanneries compared to 2022.The same document specifies that 86% of the raw materials sourced are aligned with Kering Standards. These results do not mean that the water-positive objective has been achieved. Rather, they represent an intermediate step. This is a crucial distinction. In the current context, the credibility of an environmental strategy no longer rests solely on its ultimate ambition. It depends on the quality of the indicators, the reference years, the scope covered, and the regular publication of results. This is also what is gradually distinguishing a structured environmental strategy from mere greenwashing.
The real new measure of luxury: the proof
Water could become one of the new tests of environmental maturity for homes. Not because luxury has suddenly become an industry of frugality, but because its products depend on materials, territories, and know-how whose sustainability itself relies on healthy natural resources.
At Kering, responsible water management thus joins biodiversity, traceability, climate, circularity and regenerative agriculture in a single reading of the value chain.
This approach can also become a point of comparison between major groups. Luxe Daily, for example, analyzes LVMH's commitments through its LIFE 360 roadmap. Behind different strategies, the same requirement is gaining ground: the environmental luxury of tomorrow will need to measure, document, and demonstrate.
Can Kering really become "water-positive"?
This is now the central question. The 2050 allows time to transform practices and deploy the ten Water Resilience Labs. But it also requires the Group to regularly demonstrate how this net positive impact is calculated, which basins are actually making progress, and how the benefits obtained are compared to the withdrawals and impacts of the activity. The challenge will therefore be less about uttering the word "regeneration" than about making it quantifiable. For the luxury sector, this is perhaps the most profound change: excellence is no longer judged solely by what one sees on the finished product. It now begins much further back, on a farm, in a tannery, in a watershed, and even in the quality of the water that industry leaves behind.
FAQ – Kering Water Strategy
What is Kering's water strategy?
Kering's Water Strategy , unveiled on April 28, 2025, aims to go beyond reducing consumption to restore water resources and associated ecosystems. It is based on three programs: Water-Positive Stewardship, Water-Positive Raw Materials, and Water Resilience Labs.
What is Kering's objective for 2035?
Kering aims to achieve measurable net positive impacts on water in its priority regions by 2035 and to have deployed Water Resilience Labs in its ten priority river basins.
What is Kering's objective for 2050?
The Group aims for a net positive impact on water globally by 2050, by combining reduced withdrawals, improved water management, sourcing of materials with lower water pressure and restoration of ecosystems.
Official French sources
- Kering – Water Strategy: “The Group is leading the way in the luxury sector with its Water Strategy.” Objectives for 2025, 2030, 2035, and 2050, presentation of the three programs and ten priority basins. See the official Kering source.
- Kering – Press release of April 28, 2025: “Kering unveils its first Water Strategy for a net positive impact by 2050.”Official launch, Water Resilience Labs and the Arno River basin. See the official press release
- Kering – Universal Registration Document 2025, Sustainability Statements: 2025 Results, Reduction of Water Withdrawals from Tanneries and Deployment of Water Resilience Labs. View the official Kering document
