Kering flags up risks to cotton from climate change
06/11/2015
With the title ‘Climate change: implications and strategies for the luxury fashion sector’, the report is the result of work Kering has carried out with non-profit organisation BSR using analysis (commissioned by Kering) from UK-based consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. Its aim is to provide an overview of climate change risks across the value chain and to emphasise how important it is for luxury fashion companies to include consideration of possible effects on raw materials in any “robust and ambitious” climate strategy.
The context is that the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) will take place in Paris from November 30 to December 11 and seek to establish a legally binding and universal agreement on climate. Paris-based Kering said in its introduction to the new report that it believes business “can and has to” drive action that can help. Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering’s chief sustainability officer, said: “We can replace the outdated ‘compete and consume’ business models with ones that are ‘collaborative and regenerative’ and that build resilience across our supply chains.”
Specific to cotton, the report says it is “ubiquitous in fashion” because it produces versatile, comfortable, and breathable fabrics. It warns that the effects of climate change on cotton production are likely to be highly complex and specific to particular regions, but it highlights specific examples from its new research, focusing on the timeframe of 2036 to 2060 and the changes that it believes will occur in the cotton supply chain if world leaders fail to take decisive action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
In short, temperature increases will make it more difficult to produce cotton in some countries that are already at what Kering calls “cotton’s temperature threshold” (including India and Pakistan) but, logically, will also make it possible to grow more cotton in environments that are cooler now or to start growing cotton in places that are not yet among the 80-plus cotton-producing countries around the globe. However, reduced water availability will reduce yields, as we have already seen in this decade in drought-struck areas of Australia and the US. The report says the risks to the continuation of cotton production in the next 45 years are “extreme” in two countries in particular, Somalia and Peru.
Another factor is that increasing temperatures will lead to increased occurrences of pests and diseases, which will diminish the quality of the cotton the world can produce, resulting in lower-quality fabric and more complexity in the processing stages.
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