Sustainability 09/12

Committing to Circular Creativity

Louis Vuitton products are designed to last. At every stage of the creative process, we analyze the environmental impact of our creations throughout their entire life cycle: we preserve natural capital by using fewer raw resources, we find more efficient solutions for those we use, and we constantly strive to consume less and less energy to create our products.

Our commitments

100% of products to comply with an eco-design process by 2025

100% of event & window materials reused or recycled by 2025

Eco-Designing our Products

We imagine innovative creative circularities in order to further extend the sustainability of our products.

Reducing the use of raw materials:

3D prototyping: all stages of prototyping have been rethought to reduce leftover, from scanning the models to 3D printing. Thanks to this innovative and versatile technology, adjustments or color variations can be made in real-time, both expanding creative possibilities while eliminating material waste.

Re-using materials:

Optimizing the use of our raw materials is one of our primary concerns. In 2018, Louis Vuitton established the Cuirs Patrimoine (Heritage Leathers) project in order to highlight unused leathers.

Through this initiative, our teams are encouraged to use the Maison’s existing inventory of leathers in future collections.

In 2020, we set up a showroom to internally raise awareness of these existing leathers: the event resulted in doubling the rate of leathers reused as well as establishing their systematic use by our creative teams.

As a concrete example, 9,000 square meters of unused Heritage Leathers were selected by the Visual Image Studio to make the Summer 2019 store windows.

For these windows, 7,500 pieces were produced from repurposed leather, which represents about 130,000 thin strips of leather.

Upcycling our products:

Upcycling is the art of transforming a product no longer in use into an entirely new product with enhanced aesthetic or functional value.

Launched in 2019, Louis Vuitton’s Be Mindful collection is our first upcycled collection.

The Be Mindful collection gives silk scarves a second life as new accessories or jewelry pieces.

The Be Mindful collection sees silk scarves from previous collections revisited and given a second life by enhancing a shawl or scarf through new fringing or by becoming bracelets, earrings and other accessories.

Recycling our materials:

We continually take on new projects to reduce our residual waste and give a second life to production leftovers.

As an example, leather scraps are recycled into reinforcements for our bags or mixed with paper to create new materials as is the case with the Papier Cuir of our special events shopping bags.

We are constantly looking for new ways to reuse and recycle our materials in order to optimize the use of our raw materials. We research the best external end-of-use channels such as donating leftover materials to charities or medical institutions, while also promoting recycling textile or metal leftover materials for industrial purposes.

Crafting our products to last

Our Client Care & Repair service:

Client Care & Repair workshops around the world ensure that all Louis Vuitton products can last a lifetime and even be passed from generation to generation. The possibility of future reparations to prolong an item’s lifespan is considered from the very first step of designing. To this end, workshops anticipate the need to preserve spare parts which, when necessary, are carefully used to repair items without using new materials, therefore reducing the need for additional raw materials.

Our refillable perfume bottles: Customizable by engraving, all Louis Vuitton perfumes come in a unique bottle that can be refilled in our stores thanks to a proprietary system of innovative fragrance fountains. Not only does this initiative let us increase the life span of a single perfume bottle, but it also pays homage to the Fontaines Parfumées, Louis Vuitton’s historic Grasse workshop. Our eco-design approach starts in the design phase by shaping a single industrial mold for all our bottles, thus making it possible to optimize the use of raw materials while adjusting the tools and manufacturing processes.

Eco-Designing our Events and Windows

We constantly aim to reduce the environmental footprint of our fashion shows, exhibitions and windows throughout their life cycle.

Reducing the use of raw materials

Louis Vuitton takes an eco-design approach to reduce the impact of our window displays on biodiversity.

For example, the Summer 2020 windows featuring a shoal of fish were made of recycled plastic, including recycled marine debris.

The Louis Vuitton Men’s Spring-Summer 2020 fashion show took place in Place Dauphine, Paris, requiring no additional structural construction. As a result, the show generated no structural waste. The few set elements such as tables and chairs were either rented or, if purchased, were subsequently donated to artistic or cultural partners in Paris.

Optimising the end-of-use of materials

Our overall performance

of materials used for our main events and installations in 2019 were either reused or recycled.

Re-use

of elements from the Women’s Spring-Summer 2019 Fashion Show set in Paris were donated to various cultural institutions to be reused including the structure, seats, lighting, and plexiglass.

Donations

of the set of our 2019 Time Capsule exhibition in Mexico was given to two local charities, an orphanage of 60 girls, and an organization that helps the development of indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Recycling

of the materials such as wood, metal, carpet, or glass, used in the construction of the 2018-2019 "Volez, Voguez, Voyagez" exhibition in Shanghai were ultimately recycled thanks to our partners and local teams.