Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal
How to achieve the group’s ambition in terms of growth, namely to win 1 billion new consumers worldwide, while reducing its environmental impact? This is the aim of "Sharing Beauty With All", the roadmap that details the commitments and targets of L’Oréal’s sustainable development policy.
Sustainable and desirable products
In order to produce more but with less impact, L’Oréal intends to offer products that are both sustainable and desirable. In order to achieve this, the group commits to improving every part of its value chain, from research to operations, while sharing its growth with the communities it touches through
“By accelerating sustainable innovation within our business, and harnessing the power of our brands to inform consumers, we will raise awareness about sustainability and encourage consumers to make more sustainable choices,” Jean-Paul Agon, said.
These commitments are the result of two years of exchange with various stakeholders throughout the world.
Four areas
Concretely speaking, the « Sharing Beauty With All » roadmap covers four types of commitments.
First of all, L’Oréal aims at innovating sustainably. By 2020, 100% of the products developed by L’Oréal will have an environmental or social benefit. “Every time we invent or update a product, we will improve its environmental or social,” the group says.
This means that the new product must meet at least one of the following criteria:
The new formula reduces the environmental footprint.
The new formula uses renewable raw materials that are sustainably sourced or raw materials derived from green chemistry.
The new packaging has an improved environmental profile.
The new product has a positive social impact.
The group’s second key goal is to produce sustainably. “By 2020, we will reduce our environmental footprint by 60 % whilst bringing beauty to one billion new consumers,” L’Oréal claims.
In order to reach its goals, the group has set up ambitious targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions, water consumption and waste production. However, as demonstrated by some of its competitors, such targets may also lead to improved economic performance.
L’Oréal also wants to participate in the change of consumption habits. In order to promote sustainable livings, L’Oréal will provide consumers with detailed information on the environmental impacts of its products. A product assessment tool will evaluate the environmental and social profile of 100% of new products.
Eventually, L’Oréal commits to develop sustainably. Thus, by 2020, all the group’s employees will have access to health care, social protection and training, wherever they are in the world.
L’Oréal will also enrol its strategic suppliers in its sustainability program. All of them will be evaluated and selected on social and environmental performance. L’Oréal will help them to complete a self-assessment of their sustainability policy and will give them access to its training tools.
Furthermore, by 2020, L’Oréal wants to enable more than 100,000 people from underprivileged communities, to access work. The group will achieve this goal through programmes dedicated to support disabled people and under-represented socio-ethnic groups.
L’Oréal, which previously only presented segmented programs and targets, now proposes a comprehensive and ambitious scheme, as its main global competitors, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.
