“With Naturality, Givaudan opens up a new olfactory creation chapter by adopting more eco-conscious processes. This approach is in line with the company’s raison d’être: Create with Love for Nature. It is all based on creating perfumes that convey our green commitments: reducing ingredient-related emissions by 20% by 2030 and a positive carbon footprint by 2050,” explains Xavier Renard, Global Head of Fine Fragrances at Givaudan. “Tomorrow’s classics will still provide pleasure and wellness, but they will also meet the urgent requirements needed to protect our planet”.
Environmental protection thus lies at the core of the perfumer’s job. “Over the past few years, consumers have grown aware of environmental issues and put them at the same level as the holistic approach,” says Arnaud Guggenbuhl, Marketing Director of Fine Fragrance.
To meet this expectation, Givaudan has got most of the company’s teams involved to reduce its perfumes’ environmental impact with two main priorities: revamp the perfumer’s palette with renewable ingredients and guide perfumers towards a greener creative approach.
A perfumer’s palette full of renewable ingredients
Givaudan puts an emphasis on upcycling by optimizing each resource to create innovative green ingredients. The composition company has managed to obtain a natural peach essence derived from residues of fruit juice production in the US. It is a real technical feat, since they create natural fruit extracts that had not existed so far with a highly reduced environmental impact.
The same approach was adopted for green chemistry and synthetic ingredients. Thanks to the Five Carbon Path programme, Givaudan optimizes the synthesis of perfume molecules with two main targets, renewability and biodegradability, based on an energy-efficient synthetic process which generates as little waste as possible, as can be seen with the brand new exclusive captive molecule Ebelia, a fruity note similar to blackcurrant.
Biotechnology can also produce highly odorant molecules with a small quantity of renewable materials using transformation processes with a low carbon impact. For example, Ambrofix is obtained with an enzymatic reaction with cane sugar. Formerly derived from a natural material, clary sage, this captive molecule is now based on a renewable resource – a real ecological performance, since it is much popular among perfumers.
All these new ingredients cannot but help perfumers formulate differently!
Towards more responsible olfactory creation
To gradually give up on petrochemistry, Givaudan explores all the alternatives available to create a 100% renewable palette of ingredients by 2030. It is a new olfactory language that perfumers need to learn. It involves constraints that open creative doors. Just like the disappearance of nitromusks led to the emergence of sweet notes, these green requirements are allowing a new perfumery to bloom.
This palette of renewable ingredients provides much fluidity, harmony and textures, a dimension much appealing to the public. Beyond an exercise in style, this new approach offers perfumers a real playground to work on complex, faceted perfumes that let emotions speak.
Indeed, to lighten perfumes’ carbon footprint, revamping the perfumer’s palette is only the first step: formulation should also be rethought. To this aim, Givaudan innovates by reducing the concentration in formulas to 3% or 5%, diminishing the volume of oil and the use of ingredients around the world. As a matter of fact, the new renewable ingredients with a low carbon footprint but strong olfactory power make it possible to create as highly-performing trails despite their low concentration.
With the “High-Low” concept (high performance, low carbon impact), Givaudan offers both powerful and green perfumes. In addition, this choice offers perfumers several creative advantages. The low concentrations make it possible to add materials highly limited by IFRA to formulas, while complying with the regulatory limits in force. The combination of these notes with new ingredients also gives a very modern dimension to fragrances. Lastly, the low concentrations make the use of expensive natural materials easier to create more qualitative and sophisticated perfumes.
In short, paradoxically, this innovative approach revives more classic perfumery and partially frees aesthetic research from regulatory constraints. If the green and creative benefits of the High Low concept are not visible yet on the market, to Givaudan, this technique represents one of the main paths to tomorrow’s perfumery.
