The announcement was made Thursday morning at UNESCO headquarters on Paris’ Left Bank. Among the speakers present were Audrey Azoulay, director general of UNESCO; Laurent Boillot, president and chief executive officer of Guerlain; Antoine Arnault, head of communication and image at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Guerlain’s parent company, and Sandrine Sommer, Guerlain’s chief sustainability officer.
Antoine Arnault and Audrey Azoulay
Courtesy Photo/Pierre Mouton
The new program is part of Guerlain and UNESCO’s quest to preserve bees and biodiversity, which ensures earth’s food security.
“What brings us together today is this small animal. The oldest fossil with bees measuring less than 3 millimeters was found, frozen in amber and dating from approximately 100 million years ago,” said Azoulay, adding that in a few dozen years bees risk extinction.
It is estimated that there are 75 percent fewer pollinators than in the early Nineties, and that man is most responsible (think pesticides and climate change) for their rapid decline in number. Meanwhile, between 60 percent and 90 percent of wild plants depend on bees for their reproduction.
“We will contribute up to