Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer of the Kering Group … More (fourth from left) presented the first ever Kering Generation Award X Jewelry at the JCK show in Las Vegas
Most jewelry trade shows are mainly concerned with buying and selling, but the June 2025 edition of the JCK show in Las Vegas communicated multiple messages about how and why jewelry and other luxury goods are becoming more earth-friendly. What’s more, major players in the luxury industry, such as the global holding company the Kering Group, are leading the way. (The Kering Group’s jewelry Houses include Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, and Qeelin.) On Saturday, June 7, Kering held the first-ever Kering Generation Award X Jewelry award ceremony at the JCK Show.
For RX Global, the JCK’ show’s parent company, sustainability informs how it designs trade show events and engages industry communities around the world before, during and after the annual show every June. In an email interview, Sarin Bachmann, vice-president of the RX Jewelry Portfolio, which includes JCK, JCK Magazine, Luxury and JIS wrote, “We have a unique platform to drive meaningful change through our sustainability talks and reportage, as it is central to the future of the jewelry industry.” This June, JCK teamed up with The Kering Group to present the first-ever Kering Generation Award X Jewelry ceremony during the JCK show.
JCK And Kering Group Are Sustainability Leaders
Launched in November 2024, the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry was created by the Group in collaboration with CIBJO, The World Jewellery Confederation, and with scientific coordination by Poli.Design, the Politecnico di Milan school in Milan. The Kering Generation Award X Jewelry initiative aims to support a new generation of innovators committed to designing and producing sustainable jewelry.
Embodying the theme of “Second Chance, First Choice”, the Award invited participants to design a piece of jewelry, or a collection, that incorporates waste materials, thereby giving them new luxurious life as beautiful, sustainable jewelry. The competition involved 22 startups and students from 10 world-renowned universities and academies.
In an email interview following the Award ceremony, Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering Group Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer, described how Kering’s jewelry Houses Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, and Qeelin “…all embody the Group’s broad commitment to responsible innovation and sustainability across the jewelry value chain. The use of such materials as Cofalit, she continued, “a byproduct of industrial waste, by our Maison Boucheron, is a powerful example of how creativity and responsibility can go hand in hand in high jewelry, We actively encourage all our Houses to explore new materials and innovative processes that help reduce environmental impact and expand the boundaries of what is possible in luxury.”
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Kering Generation Award X Jewelry Winners
The winner in the student category of the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry was Lee Min Seo, a student from the Department of Metalwork and Jewelry at Hongik University in Seoul, Korea. Lee Min Seo breathes new life into tradition with Rhythm Reborn, a collection crafted from discarded leather from the janggu, a traditional Korean percussion instrument. Lee transforms worn-out janggu leather — often discarded after extensive use — into sculptural jewelry pieces. This prevents environmental waste while revivifying the rhythms, lyricism, and human emotions of Korean musical heritage.
The startup category Award went to Ianyan, a retail independent designer jewelry brand that uses fractured opals and other ruggedly beautiful gemstones that are generally absent from conventional jewelry. Ianyan promotes a circular economy by choosing imperfect gems to revive traditional values and give new life to materials through craftsmanship, and by designing jewels with stones that are repaired, transformed or recomposed.
The Award winners will be mentored by experts from Politecnico di Milano and their resulting designs will be unveiled by the Kering Group at the 2026 JCK Show and through global media channels, highlighting their commitment to innovation and sustainability. In addition, student Lee Min Seo is invited to complete an internship at one of Kering’s jewelry Maisons. The Award trophies, designed by Yi Design, winner of the third Kering Generation Award in China, were presented by Professor Alba Cappellieri, Head of Jewelry and Fashion Accessories Programs at Politecnico di Milano, Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability and Institutional Affairs Officer at Kering, and Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO.
A Dynamic Sustainability Partnership
According to Bachmann, Marie-Claire Daveu’s presence at JCK for the second year in a row “represents the forward-thinking partnership that JCK values deeply. Marie Claire’s commitment to returning and the selection of JCK as the best global partner for the Kering Generation Award X Jewelry underscores the recognition of JCK as the premier platform to reach the global industry on the largest scale– where all the most important leaders come together.” While it’s too early for Bachmann to announce specific plans for 2026, “I can say that our relationship with sustainability leaders like Marie-Claire continues to grow stronger. JCK is the natural home for initiatives that shape the jewelry industry’s future. Collaborations with partners like Kering,” she mused, “validate that the most innovative companies recognize JCK as the platform of choice for reaching the entire global jewelry industry.”
As Daveu put it, “At Kering, sustainability is at the core of our Group strategy, and innovation is one of the key pillars of our sustainability roadmap. Why? Because we firmly believe that innovation is essential to achieving our goals – not only in fashion, but also in jewelry. The work on raw materials is especially critical in the jewelry sector,” she explained, “because raw materials represent the largest share of our environmental footprint. The way we source and transform those materials is where the most meaningful change can occur. That’s why research and development in this area is a clear priority, supported at both Group and brand level.”
How Third-Party Analysts Rank Kering’s ESG
These efforts appear to be paying off, big-time, for Kering was ranked first out of all the Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods companies in Corporate Knights’ 2024 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. (The Corporate Knights Global 100 is an annual ranking of the world’s most sustainable corporations, published by Corporate Knights.) This index evaluates publicly traded companies with over $1 billion in revenue based on their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. The ranking is announced each year during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
While this was the seventh year in a row that Kering was lauded by the Corporate Knights index as an Industry leader, Kering was also designated as first place winner in its Corporate Knights peer group category of Retail, excepting grocery and automobile businesses. To determine this year’s ranking, 6,733 companies were analyzed against global industry peers across 25 quantitative key performance indicators, including percentage of sustainable revenue and percentage of sustainable investment. Also assessed are carbon productivity, meaning the amount of revenue produced per unit of carbon emissions, plus racial and gender diversity.
Encouraging movements highlighted in 2024’s Corporate Knights analysis include continued growth in corporate revenues and investments aligned with what it terms a ‘sustainable economy’. The report claims there was close to a 30% growth annually in this realm, which is six times faster than the economy at large. While the rising tide of corporate sustainability is creating worldwide big wave patterns, JCK and the Kering Group are surfing those waves together.
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