The weekend of August 24th-25th, during the G7 summit in Biarritz, Francois Pinault, CEO of Kering said “This Fashion Pact is about saying: We have acknowledged the 21st century’s environmental issues, and we are taking our responsibility through collective action and common objectives.”

Knowing If the Fashion Pact will be applied by all labels, how economically challenging these measures will be, how much time these measures will take to be put into place... Are so many questions that remain unanswered...

The 32 signatories include high-end brands like Chanel, Prada and Hermès; athletic labels like Nike and Adidas; as well as fast fashion retailers like the H & M Group and Inditex, the parent company of Zara. All these labels assure they will implement the pact's changes to their own development. No punitive measures will be imposed to the brands who didn't succeed in this challenge, nor will this "set of guidelines" be legally binding for them.

Here are the main commitments to which they agreed on: for the oceans they will eliminate disposable plastics by 2030 and support research and innovation to limit pollution to microfibers. On the biodiversity side, they support regenerative, non-intensive agriculture, adopt standards for animal welfare, and ensure that they do not participate in forest degradation. In terms of climate, members of the pact want to achieve "zero emission" by 2050, and move to 100% renewable energy by 2030 in their supply chain.

Greenpeace and other OGNs were quite skeptical and critical towards this operation. They see this as a mascarade advancing the argument that an ultra-dynamic sector that generates more than 1500 billion euros of turnover per year would never accept to make less profit nor produce less.

Meanwhile, some big names, like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury group in terms of sales, were absent and unmentioned.

No matter how difficult it is to judge the future efficiency of this operation, François Pinault and the 32 signatories are taking a real step forward entering biodegradable action. Everything is yet to come...