LVMH opens environmental education centre in nature reserve west of Paris

LVMH employees can now look forward to a dream destination for their sustainability training. A 30-hectare nature reserve on the edge of the Rambouillet forest, in the Yvelines region west of Paris, run by the Vallée de la Millière association founded by ecologist photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. On Tuesday October 1, through a partnership described as “strategic,” LVMH opened an educational centre within the reserve, where its employees will be trained to tackle environmental sustainability challenges and protect biodiversity.

 
The centre’s site is in the town of Mesnuls, and had been owned since 1868 by the Guerlain family, whose label was acquired by LVMH in 1994. The site was bought by the Arthus-Bertrand family in 2020, with the aim of turning it into a biodiversity sanctuary, and has since been listed as a nature area of ecological, wildlife and plant life interest (ZNIEFF). Twenty-eight hectares within the area are kept exclusively for re-wilding. Among the species that have returned the area are deer, badgers, dragonflies, and several types of bird, like the bulrush-dwelling fantail warbler. The remaining 1.4 hectares are home to a botanic garden and a biological-pedagogical vegetable garden, which Guerlain financed three years ago. The LVMH label has recently renewed its partnership for another three years.
 
LVMH began backing the Vallée de la Millière association in 2022, enabling it to speed up the renovation of the farmhouses existing in the area, which now host the centre’s classrooms, a restaurant and a hostel. Arthus-Bertrand said that the investment required was “several million euro,” without giving further details. In 2023, LVMH inked a five-year partnership deal with the association, providing advance funding for the training courses planned in the period, equivalent to 90 days of classes per year.

By 2026, LVMH intends to train all his collaborators, over 200,000 people, both at the Vallée de la Millière and via the group’s e-learning programme and the classes held by LVMH at the Life Academy, which the group launched in 2023. The Vallée de la Millière centre is an integral part of LVMH’s Life 360 environmental programme, focused on circularity, traceability, biodiversity and climate change engagement. Since 2022, the number of people trained through the programme has risen from 30,000 to 70,000.

“This place will foster our connection with nature. Our professions are interlinked with nature though we are all resolutely urban-dwelling, and we tend to forget that behind a dress there are cotton fields, behind a perfume there are flowers, and behind a bottle of champagne, there are vineyards,” said Hélène Valade, head of environmental development at LVMH. “We want to be the originators of a new luxury characterised by a renewed connection with nature. We are also going to organise specific training courses for our suppliers, and the venue will be open to the public and schools too,” she added.
 
The courses, each for a maximum of 15-20 people, will feature a mix of LVMH employees from across the group and its 75 labels, including Dior, Louis Vuitton and Moët & Chandon, in order to “promote dialogue and sharing of opinions.” The curriculum will consist of sessions from four to over six hours each, divided between basic training courses on environmental fundamentals, and more advanced courses covering specialist areas such as eco-design, sustainable sourcing, and climate change action.