Our Methodology

Aware of the environmental challenges the world is facing, we committed in 2013 to improve the environmental and social footprint of our products year after year. Today, we are sharing information on this environmental and social impact with our consumers, so that they can make informed consumption choices.

To develop this Product Environmental and Social Labelling system, we consulted 11 independent scientists and experts to define an impact assessment methodology, in line with the European Commission guidelines.

The “Overall Environmental Impact” measures all the environmental impacts of a product throughout its life cycle, i.e. during the production of ingredients, the production of packaging, the manufacturing of the product, its use and the recycling of packaging.

For cosmetics, the carbon footprint and the water footprint are two key elements of a product's Environmental Impact.

Each product can then be ranked in comparison to other L’Oréal products in these same category. For example, a shampoo is compared to more than 1,000 other shampoo products from L'Oréal, shampoo products with a score of "A" have the most favorable footprint.

To go further and to guarantee the accuracy of our data, we asked Bureau Veritas Certification to take critical look at this display.

For more information, see the favorable assessment issued by Bureau Veritas Certification on May 3, 2024.

Lastly, additional information about the manufacturing conditions, the packaging and the social contribution of a product (e.g. whether it has raw materials or packaging suppliers that support a disadvantaged community) is provided in the "Environmental and Social Impact" section of the descriptive sheets.

Product Environmental & Social Impact Labelling Methodologies

Publications

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L'Oréal PIL - Methodology

L'Oréal PIL - Methodology
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If you are interested in the technical details of the methodology used to develop the Product Environmental & Social Impact Labelling, see our Methodologies document.
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