Performance and responsibility go hand-in-hand as L’Oreal commits to low-carbon economy

By Andrew MCDOUGALL

- Last updated on GMT

L'Oreal CEO Jean-Paul Agon says L'Oreal is committed to being responsible while not compromising performance
L'Oreal CEO Jean-Paul Agon says L'Oreal is committed to being responsible while not compromising performance

Related tags Carbon dioxide

L’Oréal CEO Jean-Paul Agon says that performance and responsibility go ‘hand-in-hand’ as the French firm commits to contributing to deploying a low-carbon solutions and tackle the risks of climate change.

Speaking at the global Business & Climate Summit in Paris, Agon reinforced the cosmetics maker’s commitment and drew on last month’s announcement that it had cut carbon emissions by 50%​ as an example of its ongoing strategy.

"L’Oréal is committed to being a significant contributor to a low-carbon economy, demonstrating that performance and responsibility can go hand in hand,”​ he says.

“We work to do our part for the limitation of global warming at  2˚C, having already reduced by 50.2% in absolute terms the CO2 emissions of our operations between 2005 and 2014 while increasing our production by 22% over the same period."

Objectives

L’Oreal has 43 plants and 153 distribution centres around the world producing 6.3 billion cosmetic units per year.

The company set the objective of reducing CO2 emissions at its plants and distribution centres by 50% in absolute terms, between 2005 and 2015, and this was reached last year, while production volumes increased by 22%.

The company also says that five plants: Burgos in Spain, Libramont in Belgium, Rambouillet in France, Settimo in Italy, Yichang in China; as well as 3 distribution centres in Australia, Mexico and the United States, have already reached carbon footprint neutrality, or will do so this year.

Plan

In order to further its commitment as part of its Sharing Beauty with all sustainability program, L’Oreal has also set out plans to reduce energy consumption, emissions from transportation, and expand the use of renewable energy.

To decrease energy consumption, all new L’Oréal buildings will meet sustainable building standards such as LEED, HQE, BREEAM, and existing sites will continue focusing on improving their energy efficiency by redefining processes, LED installation, building insulation, heat recovery, and improved overall production efficiency.

To supplement the efforts of its production sites, L’Oréal has also committed to reducing CO2 emissions from transportation of finished products, from its plants to its customers, relying on integrating low-emission transport options as soon as possible and developing and implementing optimised transport plans.

Finally, L’Oréal believes that increasing the use of renewable energy is one of the principle levers for reaching its target for reduced CO2 emissions, and projects are underway in several sites.

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