The board of directors of the École polytechnique has just approved the sale of land to the luxury group to create a research laboratory dedicated to “sustainable and digital luxury”, based in Saclay, in the west of Paris.
A center dedicated to “sustainable and digital luxury”.
After months of waiting, the LVMH group will be able to see its project hatch. At the end of a long negotiation, the board of directors of the Polytechnic school validated by 19 votes for, 4 against and one abstention, the sale of a land neighboring the establishment to the group of Bernard Arnault.
The project, called LVMH Gaia, will bring together more than 300 researchers by 2026 on an area of 22,500 m² for an investment of more than 100 million euros, according to LVMH. The research center dedicated to “sustainable and digital luxury” will work on the themes of eco-responsibility and digital applied to the luxury segments. By settling near the X, Bernard Arnault, himself a polytechnician, hopes to be able to develop research partnerships with the school. It plans to invest 2 million euros over 5 years on these bridges with the school.
This initiative is part of the group’s environmental policy, which plans to reduce its total greenhouse gas emissions per unit of added value, direct and indirect, by 55% by 2030, including the supply in raw materials, delivery to stores or to customers.
A controversial project.
Located within the innovation park of the Institut Polytechnique de Paris (which brings together five schools including Polytechnique), the land belongs to the Public Development Establishment of Paris-Saclay (EPAPS). The plot chosen by LVMH being close to the engineering school, the transfer had raised a debate within the establishment. A group of students and former students gathered around the collective “Polytechnique is not for sale!” are still fiercely opposed to the establishment of this laboratory near their premises. They accuse LVMH of wanting “cementing bogus respectability on the environmental issue and securing privileged access for students on campus, while the spinoffs on the school side would be extremely meager, both financially and scientifically”.
This is not the first time the school has had disagreements over private partnerships. In January 2022, the TotalEnergies group had given up setting up its new Research and Development center on land also located near the Ecole Polytechnique after the mobilization of teachers and students opposed to the project.