Richemont-owned fine jewellery brand Cartier has chosen Earth Day to symbolically join the CEO Carbon Neutral Challenge, initiated in 2019 by Marco Bizzarri, CEO of Gucci, with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“We firmly believe that the goal of a sustainable [luxury] industry can only be achieved through collaborative initiatives,” said Cyrille Vigneron, president and CEO of Cartier International. “As citizens of the world, we believe it is our duty to protect its biodiversity and make a positive impact on the planet. This means boosting Cartier's support for innovative partnerships such as the CEO Carbon Neutral Challenge launched by Marco Bizzarri, uniting our forces to make a positive impact on the planet and its people. We hope that other players from the private sector will commit to join the challenge,” added Vigneron.

The CEO Carbon Neutral Challenge was launched in 2019 by Gucci CEO Marco Bizzari. Its aim is to directly involve the CEOs of leading corporations in reducing their companies’ greenhouse gas emissions. By joining the initiative, they commit to cutting direct emissions generated by their group's activities, but also to put in place mechanisms for carbon emission compensation, for protecting forests around the world and fighting against climate change. Cartier has added its name to groups like San Pellegrino, the RealReal, Lavazza and Levin. 

“The recent report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change outlined a scenario that has become even worse since I launched the CEO Carbon Neutral Challenge in 2019,” said Bizzarri. “It is now increasingly clear that we need to act now for nature, and that it is simply not enough to focus solely on reducing emissions over the coming decades,” he added.

For Cartier, joining this initiative chimes with the brand’s continuing commitment to sustainability, as part of the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) and the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN), a partnership of public and private organisations aiming to identify and analyse the environmental impact of manufacturing and business activities, and then set targets for its reduction. Kering and Cartier have also joined forces for the Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030, akin to the Carbon Neutral Challenge. Its objective is to prioritise measures in the watchmaking and jewellery sectors to cut greenhouse gas emissions. This is in accordance with the UN’s Paris agreement for limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2030, but also to reach a zero emissions target by 2050.