L’Oréal sites to be carbon free by 2025

26 / 06 / 2020

By Marwa Nassar - -

L’Oréal will get all its sites to be carbon free – meaning to depend on renewable energy – by 2025 under its new sustainability program “L’Oréal for the future” for 2030.

By 2030, L’Oréal will reduce by 50% per finished produce its entire greenhouse gas emissions.

The company will stop using virgin plastics by 2030 and will depend on recycled plastics or bio-based sources for packaging its products.

The L’Oréal 2030 sustainability plan is based on two main axes; transforming L’Oréal’s business to respect the planet’s limits and contributing to solving the world’s challenges by supporting urgent social and environmental needs.

“Transforming our activities to be aligned with planet boundaries, this is how we designed out our targets,” Alexandra Palt, L’Oréal Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer said during a digital press conference on Friday on the company’s new 2030 sustainability ambitions.

She noted that “environmental science has defined nine planet boundaries that we should not cross if we want to guarantee safe operating space for humanity.”

So, L’Oréal wants to do everything within the planet’s boundaries, she accentuated, she added.

L’Oréal will also work on empowering its consumers to make more sustainable choices through a Product Environmental & Social Impact Labeling mechanism, scaling from A to E.

This labeling mechanism was endorsed by independent scientific experts and verified by an independent auditor, which will be progressively deployed for all brands and categories.

Under this sustainability plan, L’Oréal will allocate €150 million to address urgent social and environmental issues under its new sustainability program.

L’Oréal will channel €100 million out of the total sum into addressing key environmental challenges. Within this context, about €50 million will pour into damaged natural marine and forest ecosystems restoration projects. The other €50 million will be directed to financing projects linked to the circular economy.

The company will also create a €50 million charitable endowment fund for supporting vulnerable women in lined with the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The company will seek to support field organizations and local charities in their efforts to fight poverty, help women achieve social and professional integration, provide emergency assistance to refugee and disabled women, prevent violence against women, and support victims.

L’Oréal has been working hard for years to serve the sustainable development goals and address environmental challenges.

Since 2005, the company has reduced the CO₂ emissions of its plants and distribution centers by 78% in absolute terms, exceeding its initial target of 60% by 2020, while production volume increased by 37% over the same period.

At the end of 2019, L’Oréal had 35 carbon neutral sites , including 14 factories.

In 2013, L’Oréal decided to address the core of its activity: the development of beauty products, its global sustainability program Sharing Beauty With All, announcing tangible sustainability goals towards 2020. At its core laid an innovative tool known as SPOT (for Sustainable Product Optimization Tool), made to assess and improve the environmental and social performance of products across all brands.

Sustainability is now fully integrated into the design process of L’Oreal’s new products, from the earliest stages.

About 85% of products created or renovated in 2019 had an improved environmental and social profile.

By end of 2019, L’Oréal has helped 90,635 people from disadvantaged communities find employment through the solidarity purchasing and inclusion programs.

L’Oréal is the only company in the world to have achieved an “A” score in all three CDP rankings – climate protection, water management, forest preservation – for 4 years in a row.