On May 19, B Team Leader Company Kering revealed the true cost of its operations on the environment by releasing the results of its company-wide environmental profit and loss account (EP&L).

We all know that business depends greatly on nature in its day to day operations, from water use, sourcing of raw materials, energy use and a multitude of other business activities. What is becoming increasingly clear is that these activities also come at a significant cost; contributing to water and air pollution, large-scale deforestation and other forms of land and sea degradation, biodiversity loss, and unprecedented human-induced climate change.

What is not so clear is how to address these issues, but new valuation methods like the EP&L are redefining success in business, by assigning a monetary value to all environmental material impacts, across the supply chain. This gives a company important and detailed information about where it is having a negative impact across its entire range of operations, and to also identify the best opportunities for change.

Making Kering's announcement even more impactful is that they've 'open-sourced' the methodology used to carry out their EP&L in hopes that others in their industry, and global business as a whole will follow suit.

To learn more about Kering's release of their EP&L and their 'open-source' methodology click here.