Save this story Save Story Save this story This story is part of ‘The Business Case for Nature’, a series exploring fashion’s impact on nature and vice versa. Read more here .
In 1966, the banks of the Arno river burst, causing the most destructive flood Florence had ever experienced. It took dozens of lives, displaced thousands of people, and claimed millions of rare books and art works.
The region has seen many more floods since then. In 2023, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared a state of emergency for the worst-hit areas amid Storm Ciarán, which caused an estimated €1.89 billion in damages. One of the fashion suppliers hit was Prato-based Beste Group, whose HQ sits directly on the bank of the Bisenzio river. The company purchased a new machine — worth around €7 million — the month prior, which was then destroyed by the floods. It was only insured for 60% of the price, so replacing it cost the company several million euros. On top of that, the waist-high water brought production to a standstill for three weeks.
When Rachel Kolbe Semhoun, head of sustainable sourcing and nature initiatives at Kering, read about these losses in Vogue Business , it started a chain reaction that eventually led her to create the group’s industry-first water strategy . “They had done everything right inside the factory, but they were still flooded,” she says. “It was a great example of how nobody can make resilience happen by themselves. The only thing that would have helped was collectively investing in better nature infrastructure upriver.”
The luxury conglomerate has outlined a plan to become “water positive”, laying the groundwork for other brands to follow. It’s a bold move, but experts say it’s just the beginning.
When Kering set that strategy 18 months ago, its goal was to become “net water-positive” by 2050, with “measured net-positive water impacts” in 10 priority water basins by 2035. It was a bold aim. No other fashion company had developed a dedicated strategy for water resilience, and there was no blueprint for the French luxury group to follow.
On Monday, Kering officially opened its first Water Resilience Lab in the Arno Basin, outlining a roadmap for building water resilience that it says can be replicated in the other nine priority areas, spanning France, Spain, Türkiye, Mongolia, India, Peru, Argentina, South Africa and Australia. Vogue Business got a first look.
“Most of fashion’s strategic raw materials rely on water,” says Kering chief sustainability and institutional affairs officer, Marie-Claire Daveu. This doesn’t just apply to the growing phase for natural fibers like wool, leather and cotton, but also to the production processes that follow, including washing, dyeing and tanning. “To ensure resilience and business continuity for the fashion industry, we have to support the regeneration and replenishment of the key basins where we operate as an industry, which are home to our suppliers. Ultimately, this becomes a significant driver of long-term value creation for businesses, strengthening supply chain resilience, reducing water-related risks, and supporting the health of ecosystems and communities our industry relies on.”
Kering started with the Arno Basin because of the “irreplaceable know-how” specific to the region, as well as the many local, strategic suppliers it relies on for everything from ready-to-wear and leather goods to accessories and jewelry. “The Arno Basin offers a perfect opportunity to create and test this new model,” says Daveu, “because it has the governance and the stakeholders that can carry through the lab’s ambitious approach.”
That ambitious approach involves bringing together public institutions, businesses, academia, the scientific community and financial actors. In the case of the Arno Basin, that includes Kering’s Regenerative Fund for Nature co-founder Conservation International, environmental consultancy Etifor, the University of Florence and multiple layers of local government, as well as the Northern Apennines River Basin Authority and local land reclamation authorities ANBI Toscana and ANCI Toscana. “It’s been very important for the lab to build on the efforts, understanding and achievements by public authorities in the region,” says Daveu. “The lab is amplifying what has previously been done, while filling gaps and creating new models.”
Kering has officially launched its first water resilience lab, in Italy’s Arno Basin.
There are three main pillars to the roadmap: creating robust and innovative governance structures that allow all stakeholder groups to be heard; creating a financial model that incentivizes change without relying too much on philanthropy; and building out a portfolio of nature-based and industrial projects for various stakeholders to implement, each of which has a strong business case .
Future climate and nature risks are central to that. By 2030, Tuscany is expected to see upward of 50 days of heat stress each year, leaving local communities vulnerable to water scarcity and other water-related risks. But, according to Kering, if 48 million cubic meters of water can be retained in the Arno Basin, the impact of future flooding events will be drastically reduced, with each cubic metre of water retained avoiding approximately €157 in flood damage.
The lab has identified six key intervention points in the local area, where it says investments can generate the greatest impact: Villa Petriolo, Ombrone/Bisenzio, Altopascio/Lake Sibolla, Pisa/Era Basin, Usciana/Pescia River, and Arezzo/Chiana Valley. In each location, “multi-sectorial and private-public consensus has been a real game-changer”, says Daveu.
The roadmap was based on leading methodologies, including volumetric water benefit accounting (VWBA), which allows companies to quantify water stewardship impacts in consistent, comparable units, and the Science-based Targets for Nature (SBTN) of which Kering was an early adopter . These approaches were supplemented by a basin-specific methodology built by the University of Florence, which provides the scientific basis for quantifying risks and outcomes.
It’s a robust start, but some fine-tuning is needed to turn this into a reliable and replicable model other brands can lean on, says Daveu. “A key limitation is the lack of recognition of the role nature-based solutions play in mitigating risk and building long-lasting resilience,” she explains. “This limitation is part of the work the lab will address; innovating the governance and the financial model to go beyond philanthropy to make nature-based resilience a viable investment.”
Moving forward, proving the return on investment for water resilience initiatives like this will be critical to long-term success, she adds. Until now, investments in water resilience have largely been funded by philanthropic foundations, and projects have developed in siloes, minimizing the potential for impact. “Philanthropy will never be enough to support the needed investments for real resilience,” says Daveu. “Efforts need to be coordinated to address water risks in a holistic way [...] and become truly resilient. Amplifying impacts and investments is necessary to have a viable financing model for nature to bring investors to the table.”
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Source: Lifestyle
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