LVMH appoints ex-Suez executive as environmental development director

French luxury group LVMH has recently appointed Hélène Valade as environmental development director. The appointment is effective from January 6, and was prompted by the forthcoming retirement of Sylvie Bénard, who has held the post of environmental development director of LVMH for 26 years.

A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Hélène Valade began her career at the Institut français de l'opinion publique (IFOP) before being hired by French utilities and waste management group Suez in 2005. Until 2014, she was sustainable development director of the group’s water supply company Lyonnaise des Eaux, and was then appointed Suez’s vice-president of sustainable development.

Since June 2018, she has also been the president of CSR watchdog ORSE (Observatoire de la responsabilité sociétale des entreprises), and is a director of environmental advisory agency ADEME.

Valade is recognised as being at the forefront in her field, and she should help boost the environmental credentials of the LVMH group, which was conspicuously absent among last August’s 32 Fashion Pact signatories, all of them fashion industry heavyweights. She will be tasked with continuing Bénard’s work in deploying the group’s ‘LIFE 2030’ strategy, LVMH’s new set of environmental guidelines.

“I am delighted to welcome Hélène Valade,” said Antoine Arnault, in charge of corporate image and communication at the LVMH group. “Her mission will be to stand up for the improvement of the environmental performance of all of our products, to deploy the highest standards in all our supply chains, to improve the key environmental effectiveness indicators in all our production sites and to ensure we reduce our CO2 emissions,” he added.

LVMH appoints ex-Suez executive as environmental development director

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