Happi Staff05.19.20
A new report published today by sustainability consulting group Quantis maps the urgent actions that cosmetics and personal care brands must consider to reconcile sustainability with today’s fast-changing world. The report, Make Up the Future: Levers of change for a sustainable cosmetics business, provides a primer on the top issues the $488 billion global cosmetics industry faces today and delivers a palette of science-based solutions that will build business resilience. The report is also a call to action for beauty players to join forces to fill critical data gaps to enhance understanding of the industry’s impacts, said the Paris-based group.
In Make Up the Future, Quantis demonstrates how science-driven action across three levels — industry, corporate and product — is critical for shaping a sustainable future for cosmetics. The report offers an unprecedented look inside today’s beauty and personal care industry to help brands prioritize efforts on the topics that will have a meaningful impact and accelerate industry-wide action.
The report draws on Quantis’ scientific expertise and experience in cosmetics sustainability as well as concrete examples from industry sustainability leaders BeautyCounter, Chanel, Coty, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., French Federation for Beauty Companies (Fédération des Entreprises de la Beauté – FEBEA), Groupe Rocher, L’Oréal, the Personal Care and Cosmetics Council (PCPC), among others.
Topics covered in the report include:
• Science-based targets and planetary boundaries + Innovation and circularity
• Metrics-driven decisions and strategies
• The power of pre-competitive collaboration
• Product and brand transparency + Naturality
• Ecotoxicity
“Climate change, shifting lifestyles and stakeholder expectations around sustainability will define beauty for the next decade. The time is now to take action to transition to a sustainable model. Indeed, it’s time to design — to make up — the future we want for beauty and personal care,” said Dimitri Caudrelier, director of Quantis France and global cosmetics industry lead. “As a first step, brands will need to assess whether they are operating within or above our planet’s boundaries.”
To ensure industry efforts meet what scientists say is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 ̊C, cosmetics companies must act decisively. Featuring insights and analysis from Quantis, case studies from industry sustainability leaders, and descriptive infographics, the report delves into the most relevant issues for cosmetics and personal care from an industry, corporate and product perspective.
The report will set sustainability managers, corporate decision-makers and their teams up to:
• Prioritize efforts and resources on the topics that will make a meaningful difference;
• Identify opportunities for collaboration and innovation within companies and across the industry;
• Collect high-quality, consistent and representative data to understand environmental impacts across the value chain;
• Set bold environmental goals that will lay the foundation for resilience in a resource- constrained world; and
• Accelerate industry-wide action to make up a sustainable future for cosmetics.
• A critical look at cosmetics’ environmental data gaps
Data can be a major catalyst for meaningful change. For the cosmetics industry to catch up to FMCG categories more advanced on sustainability, it will need more, high-quality, comprehensive data to understand the full scale and scope of its environmental impacts.
In an effort to shed light on key areas of impact, Quantis produced the first full value chain environmental footprint estimate of the cosmetics and personal care industry. Quantis’ estimates, based on currently available data, puts its contribution to global CO2 emissions anywhere between 0.5% to 5%, highlighting the need for additional data to calculate a more complete picture of the industry’s impacts. What the estimated footprint data can identify, however, is that the raw materials, packaging, transportation and use phase stages are the main areas where innovative and science-backed solutions can lead to significant impact reduction.
“Consumers increasingly demand beauty products that are clean, safe, transparent, ethically sourced and sustainable. The only way to deliver these goals is to get serious about sustainability. Quantis’ report shows us how,” said Gregg Renfrew, CEO and founder of Beautycounter.
Quantis, L’Oréal and other sustainability leaders will share their journeys and how to leverage this new resource in a webinar on June 10.
In Make Up the Future, Quantis demonstrates how science-driven action across three levels — industry, corporate and product — is critical for shaping a sustainable future for cosmetics. The report offers an unprecedented look inside today’s beauty and personal care industry to help brands prioritize efforts on the topics that will have a meaningful impact and accelerate industry-wide action.
The report draws on Quantis’ scientific expertise and experience in cosmetics sustainability as well as concrete examples from industry sustainability leaders BeautyCounter, Chanel, Coty, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc., French Federation for Beauty Companies (Fédération des Entreprises de la Beauté – FEBEA), Groupe Rocher, L’Oréal, the Personal Care and Cosmetics Council (PCPC), among others.
Topics covered in the report include:
• Science-based targets and planetary boundaries + Innovation and circularity
• Metrics-driven decisions and strategies
• The power of pre-competitive collaboration
• Product and brand transparency + Naturality
• Ecotoxicity
“Climate change, shifting lifestyles and stakeholder expectations around sustainability will define beauty for the next decade. The time is now to take action to transition to a sustainable model. Indeed, it’s time to design — to make up — the future we want for beauty and personal care,” said Dimitri Caudrelier, director of Quantis France and global cosmetics industry lead. “As a first step, brands will need to assess whether they are operating within or above our planet’s boundaries.”
To ensure industry efforts meet what scientists say is needed to limit global warming to 1.5 ̊C, cosmetics companies must act decisively. Featuring insights and analysis from Quantis, case studies from industry sustainability leaders, and descriptive infographics, the report delves into the most relevant issues for cosmetics and personal care from an industry, corporate and product perspective.
The report will set sustainability managers, corporate decision-makers and their teams up to:
• Prioritize efforts and resources on the topics that will make a meaningful difference;
• Identify opportunities for collaboration and innovation within companies and across the industry;
• Collect high-quality, consistent and representative data to understand environmental impacts across the value chain;
• Set bold environmental goals that will lay the foundation for resilience in a resource- constrained world; and
• Accelerate industry-wide action to make up a sustainable future for cosmetics.
• A critical look at cosmetics’ environmental data gaps
Data can be a major catalyst for meaningful change. For the cosmetics industry to catch up to FMCG categories more advanced on sustainability, it will need more, high-quality, comprehensive data to understand the full scale and scope of its environmental impacts.
In an effort to shed light on key areas of impact, Quantis produced the first full value chain environmental footprint estimate of the cosmetics and personal care industry. Quantis’ estimates, based on currently available data, puts its contribution to global CO2 emissions anywhere between 0.5% to 5%, highlighting the need for additional data to calculate a more complete picture of the industry’s impacts. What the estimated footprint data can identify, however, is that the raw materials, packaging, transportation and use phase stages are the main areas where innovative and science-backed solutions can lead to significant impact reduction.
“Consumers increasingly demand beauty products that are clean, safe, transparent, ethically sourced and sustainable. The only way to deliver these goals is to get serious about sustainability. Quantis’ report shows us how,” said Gregg Renfrew, CEO and founder of Beautycounter.
Quantis, L’Oréal and other sustainability leaders will share their journeys and how to leverage this new resource in a webinar on June 10.