L’Oréal is Leading the Beauty Industry in Going Green
L’Oréal is going green. The beauty products giant is making “Green Sciences” the center of its planning for research and development as it builds its brand as a safe, transparent, and eco-friendly business.
L’Oréal products currently use raw inputs that are 34% of natural origin, 59% renewable, and 80% biodegradable. In establishing its new Research & Innovation the company has announced that by 2030 95% of ingredients will be derived from renewable plant sources, abundant minerals, or renewable processes. All of L’Oreal’s products will be ocean-friendly, respectful of the marine environment, doing no harm to the diversity of deep ocean, coastal, or freshwater ecosystems.
Says L’Oréal Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Hieronimus, “With Green Sciences we are entering a new chapter for L’Oréal Research & Innovation, which has been a key driving force behind the company since its creation. Our ambition is that by 2030 we will be able to offer women and men around the world increasingly effective, safe cosmetics that respect the environment. The company has also renewed its commitment to reducing emissions, water, and use of water, and to become carbon-positive, sequestering more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it releases into the atmosphere.
L’Oréal said the rapid shift toward new renewable alternatives to ingredients based on petroleum-derived chemicals is unfolding at a time that preserving the planet is paramount and the COVID pandemic is pumping demand for products proven beneficial to maintaining health and unquestionably environmentally safe.
With this new commitment to Green Sciences, Calvert Research & Management now ranks beauty specialist L’Oréal seventh among the world’s 1000 most eco-friendly companies. This ranking puts L’Oréal on a list with the most environmentally sensitive companies in the world, a list including consumer goods behemoth Unilever, footwear manufacturer Puma, consumer brands like Vaseline and Hellman’s, and hotelier Accor. Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Hieronimus describes the Green Sciences initiative as a new chapter in the company’s long pursuit of technological innovations that improve life for ordinary people, begun 112 years ago.