L’Oréal General Manager for Travel Retail Worldwide, Vincent Boinay, told TRBusiness in an exclusive interview that customer demand for purpose-led beauty products and the company’s commitments to making its whole organisation more sustainable, now perpetuates everything it does.

 

“Customers have become extremely savvy, and they are looking more and more for purpose-led products and those that are sustainability sourced and produced,” he told TRBusiness.

 

“And we see it in all the surveys we conduct around the world. And I think it’s very important because L’Oréal proposes to ‘create beauty that moves the world’, and we believe it fits perfectly with the new world ahead of us.”

 

As reported, in May L’Oréal announced a new social and environmental solidarity programme both to support highly vulnerable women – ‘the first victims of the social and economic crisis generated by the pandemic’, according to L’Oréal – and to contribute to the regeneration of damaged natural ecosystems.

 

‘L’ORÉAL FOR THE FUTURE’

‘L’Oréal for the future’ involves the creation of a €50 million/$54m charitable endowment fund to organisations which support vulnerable women and €100 million/$108m dedicated to environmental causes.

 

 

In addition to its ongoing long-term efforts to reduce its environmental impact as part of its ‘Sharing Beauty with All’ sustainable development programme, the L’Oréal Group has decided to engage €100m into ‘impact investing’, in order to act upon two key environmental challenges.

 

A sum of €50m will be used to finance marine and forest ecosystem restoration projects that also create new social and economic development opportunities for the populations that depend on these ecosystems (developing sustainable agriculture and fishing, eco-tourism, sale of carbon credits).

 

The fund, the L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration, aims to restore one million hectares of degraded ecosystems, capture 15 to 20 million tonnes of CO2 and create hundreds of job opportunities by 2030.

 

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Another €50m will be directed to financing for projects linked to the circular economy. With this fund, the L’Oréal Group aims to contribute to the quest for solutions and the creation of business models that support the development of a circular economy, particularly in terms of recycling and management of plastic waste.

REDUCING PLASTIC PACKAGING

During a digital press conference held in June this year (attended by TRBusiness) L’Oréal outlined a number of ambitious targets as part of its next-generation sustainability programme, entitled ‘L’Oréal for the Future’.

 

The group has set a goal for 100% of the plastics used in its product packaging to be from either recycled or bio-based sources by 2030.

 

By 2025, the beauty giant expects 50% of the plastic used in its products to be sourced in this way.

 

“The commitment of the group is extremely strong when it comes to the reduction of plastic packaging, CO2 emissions, wastage, control of water,” added Boinay. “Everything we can do is going to be within these science-based targets and these planetary boundaries.

 

“Beauty tomorrow is going to be more tech-led, more responsible, more sustainable, more diverse and inclusive. Sustainability is quintessential [to the L’Oréal Group]; it’s paramount in our development and it has to be the same in travel retail.”

 

YSL PURE SHOTS AND ARMANI MY WAY

Pulling on some recent examples of L’Oréal’s commitment in travel retail, Boinay highlighted YSL Beauté’s new pop-up, which displayed its new Pure Shots skincare line in partnership with China Duty Free Group at the retailer’s Haitang Bay shopping complex.

 

The ecologically designed space, designed to take travellers on an innovative and more sustainable journey, allowed them to interact with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology for tailor-made beauty routines. The 30sq m pop-up ran up until today (30 September).

 

Sustainable materials such as Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood and recycled glass were carefully selected and designed to be separable for circular end-of-life recycling purposes. Parts of the fixtures were also designed to be reused.

 

He also highlighted the recent launch of Armani’s My Way fragrance.

 

“We could also take the recent launch of My Way from Armani. The fragrance is made with sustainably-sourced ingredients, like vanilla from Madagascar. The packaging is made of components that are recyclable and the flacon itself is refillable.”

 

While frequent business trips by L’Oréal are now on pause, Boinay also pointed out that the group was offsetting the air travel of all its employees by planting trees.

 

“It was the group’s commitment to sustainability, but it also gave all our employees a reason to believe as well. They were very proud to be part of it, and I think that’s important…We have to put sense into the platforms of our activities.”

 

Boinay concluded his comments on responsible practices by reminding TRBusiness of its new product labelling system and its new website where consumers can find more detailed information about the ingredients in all its products.

 

“For me, this is also related…it engenders trust in our customers, offers transparency and provides more information about the sustainability of our ingredients. We are also developing a new ingredient labelling system which actually highlights the social impact of all our products…and everything will be verified by the Bureau Veritas.”

 

TRBusiness spoke to Vincent Boinay about leading the beauty tech crusade in the October issue of TRBusiness magazine. Read the article online here now.