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Widespread roll-out of eco-design LVMH s new Product objective for achievement by 2020 encourages the Houses to proceed with the widespread roll-out of eco-design, which takes the environment into consideration from the prod- uct design stage.
In order to improve, all the Houses rely on a palette of tools developed for and with the Houses by the Environment Department and which are regularly improved. A continually enhanced source of inspir- ation, the online materials reference library the Eco-Materials Handbook offers to the teams responsible for the design, development and mar- keting more than 500 innovative, green materials adapted to the luxury goods industry. It also pre- pares a list of best practices to be implemented to manufacture, distribute, use and facilitate end-of- life management of the products, whether the prod-
uct is cotton pants, a store furnishing, a jewel box, a bottle of wine, footwear, or even a website. Edibox, another Web tool available to the Houses, calculates the EPI of the packaging and the carbon impact of the materials used to make it. Since the 2016 roll-out of the second version, the estimates include the environmental impact of shipping mate- rials and of the processes used to process and dec- orate them. The Houses of the Wines & Spirits and Perfumes & Cosmetics business sectors now calcu- late the EPI for all their products. The Group has given them a new target: a 10% improvement in evaluations in 2020. In 2018, the use of Edibox was also expanded to the three American Houses Sephora North America, Fresh and Benefit. The LVMH teams have also worked on the development of a third, even more comprehensive version, and also participated in the SPICE working group aimed at standardizing environmental assessment meth- ods in the world of Perfumes & Cosmetics.
An increasing number of Houses are using a method used for the first time by Hennessy in 1992: the LCA of the products. In 2018, for example, Acqua di Parma completed LCA for its Colonia Pura perfume, from design to post-consumption manage ment. The analysis took into account each component of the perfume: liquid, bottle, sprayer, label... Colonia Pura thus became the first product developed by the House on the basis of specifica- tions in which eco-design was the priority. Louis Vuitton made another use of LCA in 2018, using it to compare two processes to manufacture metal parts used in leather work and identify environmen- tal optimization paths. In order to accelerate and increase the number of eco-designed projects, the Houses train their employees, equip them and adapt their organization.
The mobilization of the Houses was successful in 2018. For example, Parfums Christian Dior signifi- cantly reduced both the weight and the volume of the new box for the Diorskin Nude powder com- pact and the packaging of the face and body foun- dation of its Backstage product line. Givenchy also reduced the size of its Christmas boxes. This initia- tive resulted in a significant improvement in the EPI, which rose from 2.9 to 8.1. It also increased the number of boxes per pallet for shipping, resulting in the equivalent of 20 fewer containers (1,000 pal- lets) than for the Christmas 2017 campaign. In the Wines & Spirits business sector, Krug stood out with Verticale I, a prestige package for six bottles of Grande Cuvée champagne. Manufactured in France from a single material FSC-certified cardboard and water-based glue, it posted an EPI of 11.26.
ACTIONS AND EVENTS
In 2018, for example, the Perfume Houses organ- ized a common operation to boost the eco-design awareness of their teams charged with packaging development and marketing. Dior Parfums also developed a white book on eco-design and uploaded an online EPI simulator. For its part, Guerlain strengthened the eco-design of its pack- aging by establishing an eco- design committee, which meets several times a year and is composed of representatives of its marketing, merchandizing, packaging development, industrial and procure- ment departments. Driven by a desire to promote the natural bases of its formulas, the House has also set up an eco-formula committee, which provides its teams responsible for sustainable develop ment, R&D, marketing and regulatory questions to talk on a regular basis and move together in a struc- tured and measured way toward more natural products.
