"In a warming world, no company can truly win." This is a key message from Hélène Valade, LVMH's Group Director of Environmental Development, during a conversation in late June in Paris. At the time, France had just experienced a heatwave, refocusing European attention on extreme weather and global warming.
Valade believes global warming is fundamentally reshaping the business landscape. Companies must adapt to this new reality by reducing their environmental impact while creating positive value and identifying new opportunities within risk management. LVMH, with its 75 brands spanning fashion, leather goods, watches, jewelry, wines, spirits, perfumes, cosmetics, and selective retailing, faces a unique challenge: each brand operates with distinct business models and supply chains. Aligning them all under a single sustainability strategy is no small feat, and this was the core of the discussion.
Making Sustainability a Common Language for 75 Brands
In 2021, driven by Antoine Arnault, LVMH's Director of Image and Environment, and Valade, the group launched the LIFE 360 environmental initiative, its central roadmap for sustainability. This initiative sets quantifiable targets for 2023, 2026, and 2030. LVMH has already met its 2023 goals and is now advancing toward the 2026 and 2030 targets. LIFE 360 is built on five pillars: promoting a circular economy, protecting biodiversity, combating climate change, establishing traceability systems, and fostering stakeholder engagement.
Valade notes that the real challenge isn't strategy but getting all 75 brands to act in unison. After several years, LIFE 360 has become a "common language" within the group, fostering greater collaboration between brands. She cites a pilot project in the U.S. involving Louis Vuitton, RIMOWA, and Dior, where these competing brands share a single truck for logistics, reducing trips, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. She hopes to expand this model to Europe and China. Another example is Louis Vuitton's partnership with French startup Grain de Sail to test low-carbon transatlantic shipping using sail cargo ships, aiming to reduce carbon emissions per ton-kilometer by about 90%. While still experimental, Valade sees this as a key direction for the luxury industry's supply chain decarbonization.
Circular Economy: From Environmental Concept to Business Model
Valade emphasizes "creative circular economy," backed by tangible data. As of 2025, 41% of LVMH's products and packaging use recycled materials, a figure she finds encouraging. The group is advancing eco-design, integrating circular economy principles from the product design stage. She believes sustainability and aesthetics are not mutually exclusive. LVMH aims to redefine the perception of recycled materials, transforming them into a source of innovative design. Younger consumers, in particular, show greater interest in transparency, traceability, material sources, and circularity.
A key circular economy goal is extending product lifecycles through repair, refurbishment, and recycling. By 2025, LVMH has repaired, refurbished, or recycled 10 million items, generating approximately €500 million in new revenue. Valade insists that business operations and sustainability are deeply integrated, with sustainability not being a burden but a creator of business value. She highlights the concept of "Second Life," where LVMH focuses on extending a product's lifespan through repair, care, and reuse, rather than just second-hand circulation. Louis Vuitton now operates ten repair workshops globally, including in China. She also introduces Nona Source, a platform that repurposes high-quality surplus materials from LVMH's fashion and leather goods brands, selling them at competitive prices to emerging designers and small brands. This platform turned profitable within four years, demonstrating the commercial viability of the circular economy. Valade notes that China's exploration of circular economy models has also provided inspiration for LVMH.
Biodiversity: Protecting Nature to Protect the Supply Chain
Valade views biodiversity not as a charitable cause but as the foundation of LVMH's long-term business model. "All our products come from nature," she states. "The luxury industry's defining feature is its heavy reliance on precious and rare natural resources. So, protecting natural resources is not just corporate social responsibility; it's the basis of our business." She adds, "Without cotton and silk, there is no fashion; without grapes, no champagne; without flowers, no perfumes and cosmetics. LVMH has a deeply interdependent relationship with nature, so we have a responsibility to give back what we take."
Biodiversity loss is an economic risk for the company. Ecosystem degradation threatens supply chain stability and future business models. Therefore, protecting biodiversity is about protecting the resilience of LVMH's supply chain. The group collaborates with international organizations and NGOs on biodiversity projects and is advancing regenerative agriculture across its supply chain, covering key raw materials like cotton, wool, and grapes. Valade believes regenerative agriculture's value goes beyond reducing fertilizer and pesticide use; it helps restore soil vitality. Currently, about 4.3 million hectares of land, including cotton fields and vineyards, are managed using regenerative practices. Healthier soil improves water retention, carbon storage, and nutrient cycling while supporting local ecosystems.
Examples include cotton fields in Turkey where, after three years of regenerative practices, soil carbon and nitrogen levels have significantly improved. In southern France and Italy, vineyards using regenerative agriculture were less affected by heavy rain, as improved soil permeability allowed better water absorption, reducing flood risks. These examples show that regenerative agriculture not only improves the environment but also builds resilience to extreme weather. Valade acknowledges this is a slow process requiring sustained investment and support for farmers. "We need to be very determined and very patient," she says, emphasizing the need for collaboration across governments, research institutions, suppliers, and other companies.
Enhancing Transparency: How Can the Luxury Industry Achieve Traceability?
Valade aims for "From Farm to Store" supply chain transparency, making raw material sources and production processes fully traceable. For a garment, this involves numerous steps from cotton cultivation to spinning, weaving, dyeing, and finishing, making complete tracking complex. However, she believes this goal is achievable. LVMH is using the TextileGenesis system for raw material tracking in textiles and Transparency-One for digital supply chain tracking in its perfumes and cosmetics business, with plans to extend similar traceability to jewelry and watches.
Valade expects consumer demand for transparency to increase, driven by new environmental labeling regulations in France and the EU. Future consumers will not only want to know a product's origin but also its full lifecycle environmental impact, including carbon emissions and water consumption.
Driving Change: It's Not Systems, but People
From land and resources to production processes and logistics, Valade believes the real challenge of sustainability is helping everyone understand why change is necessary. She advocates for "Learn to be the change," stating that change cannot be driven by command. "Sustainable transformation is not just about changing behavior; it's about updating knowledge, skills, and mindsets. Training is not about telling employees what to do, but helping them understand the logic behind the transformation and equipping them with the right methods."
In 2023, LVMH established the LIFE Academy, a training platform covering topics like natural resource protection, biodiversity, climate change, circular economy, regenerative agriculture, and sustainable design. It aims to help employees understand sustainable design principles, adopt more sustainable sourcing methods, and encourage suppliers to adopt regenerative practices. The academy is open to group employees and gradually to suppliers and other ecosystem partners. To further environmental awareness, LVMH collaborates with the Vallée de la Millière biodiversity reserve, founded by photographer and environmentalist Yann Arthus-Bertrand, for immersive environmental training. The LIFE Academy uses a blended online and offline approach. Valade aims to have 100% of employees complete environmental and sustainability training by 2026, with about 60% already achieved as of 2025. "We still have a long way to go," she admits. For her, the core of sustainable development is not competition but advancing the entire industry. No single company can solve climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource pressure alone. New partnerships must be built between brands, companies, governments, researchers, suppliers, and consumers. This is the change LIFE 360 aims to drive: making sustainability not just an environmental project but a common language woven into business decisions, product design, supply chain management, and corporate culture.
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