Eco-design: Chanel proposes a new software to the entire industry

Premium Beauty News - What is the starting point of your approach?

Michel Dupuis - In 2007, the group’s Quality Management decided to undertake a carbon footprint of its activities. The main conclusion after a few months was: "our products packaging represent half of our emissions." They are followed by such items as logistics/shipping/freight and just after by the transport of people. We obviously gave thought to what we could do to reduce our environmental impact. It was first necessary to refine the existing database on carbon emissions related to the materials and processes used in the trade, which led us to contact all our suppliers in order to obtain additional technical information.

But There is more to this. We wanted to go further and integrate other environmental indicators such as the depletion of non renewable resources, air acidification, depletion of the ozone layer, water eutrophication [1] and photochemical oxidation [2].

Premium Beauty News - Work that could only lead to the finding of an appropriate tool!

Michel Dupuis - Yes, of course! And it’s the approach proposed by the Evea company that seemed the most relevant to help us design a common tool, leading to "Winted". All this takes place in 2009! Winted offers both a technical approach on design and an overall view of results obtained through innovations and packaging enhancements. It helps better understand the origin of environmental impacts and presents areas of improvements and check-lists to go further.This software is intended for all corporate stakeholders involved in developing new packaging with several possible levels of use. It allows to address eco-design issues throughout the whole development process.

Premium Beauty News - An approach that goes beyond Chanel’s framework!

Michel Dupuis - Yes, and this obviously surprised a few, when we decided to make this software freely available for the whole industry, packaging manufacturers but also our colleagues in the trade. We had questioned ourselves: "Do we need to keep all this for ourselves?" Very quickly, the answer was no! It appeared normal to us to make this tool available for everyone, knowing that it was an immediate and practical contribution that our group could bring to this great global cause which is the preservation of our environment.

Moreover, we must be irreproachable vis-à-vis our customers on the quality of our products and their origin. When they purchase a Chanel product, they have totally integrated the fact that we are doing everything in our power to offer them high quality products. It therefore seemed normal to pioneer such a global approach and thus help things move forward!