Capri Announces National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Partnership
Capri Holdings is prioritizing responsible, regenerative leather sourcing with new partners.
Capri Holdings announced a three-year partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Thursday, in homage to the group's leather sourcing ambitions.
The partnership covers 150,000 acres in the U.S., specifically key leather-sourcing regions in the Northern Great Plains, Southern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain Rangelands, within the company's supply chain. It marks NFWF's first partnership with a fashion group. The initiative is estimated to generate between $1.5 million and $3 million in funding impact, in part from Capri as well as matched contributions. Private landowners and local grassroots organizations are the facilitating partners, alongside NFWF, working on land management among other regenerative agricultural practices.
Stable to brands including Michael
Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo, the luxury group has set commitments related to conservation; diversity, equity and inclusion, and sustainability under its “Capri Cares” CSR platform. The group has set near-term science-based targets with the Science Based Targets Initiative, and it has committed to net-zero targets.
“Last year, we developed a comprehensive strategy to ensure that we go further, faster in lowering the impact of the leather used to craft our luxury
accessories and footwear,” John D. Idol, chairman and chief executive officer of Capri Holdings Ltd., said in a press statement. “Our partnership with NFWF represents an extraordinary opportunity to tackle climate change and improve grasslands through a first-ofits-kind partnership between fashion and the nation's largest private conservation fund. We are proud to partner with
NFWF to accelerate regenerative agriculture practices, improve biodiversity and drive positive environmental and social impacts in the leather supply chain.”
Leather is a big deal at Capri. Last year, 91 percent of Capri's leather came from tanneries that are Leather Working Group-certified (up from 85 percent in 2021). At least 75 percent of Capri's leather by volume is sourced from North America, much of it from regions in the U.S., according to the group, that will be impacted by this initiative.