China Becomes L’Oréal’s First Market Realizing Carbon Neutral

China Becomes L’Oréal’s First Market Realizing Carbon Neutral with Operation Sites Covering Plants, Distribution Centers, Research & Innovation Center and Offices.

Shanghai, June 24, 2019 – L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics group, released its 2018 SHARING BEAUTY WITH ALL Sustainable Progress Report, and declared carbon-neutrality for its Suzhou plant, the second carbon-neutral plant within the Group’s APAC Zone after Yichang plant. With this milestone realized, China became L’Oréal’s 1st market to complete carbon-neutrality across the operation sites covering plants, distribution centers, research and innovation center and offices.

From the grim trend of global warming, United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals, to the battle launched by China against environmental pollution, carbon reduction has increasingly become a common concern for the international community.

L’Oréal has been making tremendous efforts to design the low carbon growth to limit the impacts on the ecosystem with sustainable development put at its strategic core. Since the launch of the group’s sustainable commitment SHARING BEAUTY WITH ALL in 2013, L’Oréal has released annually, for six years in a row, tangible progress in delivering its commitments set for 2020.   

Following Yichang plant’s carbon-neutral footprint in 2015, in Jan 2018, Suzhou plant signed the “Carbon Neutral” agreement with Suzhou Industrial Park in the witness of Mr. ZHONG Shan, Chinese Minister of Commerce, Mr. Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy and Mr. Jean-Yves Le Drian, French Foreign Minister.Suzhou plant started the construction of a CHP plant (Combined Heat and Power), to produce electricity and heat on site with high efficiency. The successful completion of CHP project enables Suzhou plant to become carbon neutral in June 2019.

“We are proud to set a new role in sustainability not only for the entire L’Oréal Group, but also for China’s beauty industry. However, enterprises can only address 2% of challenges carbon emission, the rest 98% can only be conquered with concerted efforts of the whole society (people from all walks of life) including our supply chain partners and all our consumers. We are looking forward to co-creating a broader value network of sustainability with open collaboration, and together making our earth a better place,” said Stéphane Rinderknech, CEO of L’Oréal China. 

In 2018, L’Oréal China made remarkable achievements across innovating, producing, living, retailing and developing sustainably, and embedded sustainability deeper throughout the value chain. It also expanded the scale and impact of its initiatives in collaboration with both employees and external partners, and firmly moved towards the tangible commitments of 2020 set by the Group:

- With production increased by 376%, CO2 emissions were cut by 58.7% (in absolute value) since 2005, we manage to achieve Carbon Neutrality 100% in June.

- 99% of PET plastic used for L’Oréal Paris’ shampoo products in China comes from recycled sources (PCR PET).

- All products developed in China were evaluated through SPOT (Sustainable Product Optimization Tool).

- L’Oréal China joined hands with TMALL and committed, in the presence of French and China Premiers, to having more sustainable E-commerce delivery packaging. During 2018 Double 11 Festival, more than 2 million of plastic-free packages were delivered to Chinese consumers.

- L’Oréal China had six boutiques certified by LEED for its sustainable design and construction."2018 was an incredible year for us, and this success penetrates across business, talents, social value," said Stéphane Rinderknech, "Sustainability is our golden key to consolidating long-term leadership yesterday, today and tomorrow. We will continue reinventing the way we work and produce products, to create new value for our consumers, new experiences in beauty, and most importantly, to play an important role in contributing to a more sustainable planet, and sharing beauty with all.”Going beyond the 2020 goals, in 2018, the group has set new goals for the future by defining the Sciences Based Targets - committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030, in absolute terms, compared to 2016, aligning the commitments with a well below 2 degrees trajectory.

Taking this meaningful momentum, L’Oréal China announced the change of its CEO in China. Stéphane Rinderknech, current CEO for L’Oréal China handed over the mission of achieving these ambitious new goals to Fabrice Megarbane, the new China CEO to be on board on July 1st 2019.This nomination was announced on the occasion that L’Oréal China achieved the Group’s new carbon-neutrality milestone, marking a clear signal of its determination to continuously push forward and lead high-quality development in China.