From helping Mongolia’s goat herders produce cashmere more efficiently to counting insects on “biodiversity plots” planted on farms, some of the world’s biggest brands are blazing a trail with innovative efforts to nurture nature.
On Monday, Britain said it would start a consultation process on a potential new law that would force big companies to clean up their supply chains by fining them if they use products grown on illegally deforested land. A 2019 flagship report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services warned that up to 1-million animal and plant species out of an estimated 8-million are at risk of extinction, particularly due to industrial farming and fishing.
He noted that 75% of global food production relies on pollinators such as bees and wasps, a key incentive to protect them. In July, Kering — which owns Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, among other top fashion houses — published a biodiversity strategy with a series of targets to achieve what it calls a “net positive” impact by 2025. This includes regenerating and protecting 2-million hectares — about six times the total land footprint of its supply chain — in the next five years.