Towards a more sustainable and inclusive model

L’Oréal reinforced its commitment to combating climate change with a decarbonisation trajectory validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in April 2024. This ambitious plan sets clear targets for 2030 and 2050, in line with the latest Net Zero standard, aligned with the 1.5°C trajectory, and demonstrates our science and innovation-driven approach.

We are accelerating existing initiatives and exploring multiple levers to decarbonise across our entire value chain. For instance, we are rethinking product design to minimise environmental impact throughout the product lifecycle, from ingredient sourcing to packaging choices. We are working with retailers to optimise the energy efficiency of retail spaces, the environmental impact of advertising and marketing, and to adopt more sustainable transport solutions. Supplier enablement is a third and critical part of our strategy. Here we encourage the adoption and monitoring of sustainable practices and are supporting strategic suppliers to accelerate their decarbonisation with the launch of our Solstice debt fund.

Recognising the crucial link between climate and nature, L’Oréal invests in nature-linked initiatives to protect and restore biodiversity.

The Fund for Nature Regeneration, launched five years ago, explores innovative solutions and builds resilience in vulnerable areas. In 2024, the Fund invested over €25 million in 16 global projects, including rehabilitating degraded lands, regenerating mangroves and marine areas, and conserving forests. These projects create jobs, test nature-based business models, scale innovative finance solutions, and enhance community resilience including for L’Oréal suppliers.

A third of the Fund’s investments to date are in Latin America, a region with rich biodiversity under threat. In Colombia, L’Oréal is supporting a reforestation project working with three indigenous communities. It uses a scientifically designed planting plan to maximise carbon removal, restore native forests over 15,500 hectares and provide local employment. NetZero, another project supported by the Fund, operating in tropical areas including Brazil, specialises in long-term carbon removal from the atmosphere by turning agricultural residues into biochar that can be added to improve degraded soil.

Water is an essential resource for the production and use of L’Oréal products and its sustainable management is a key priority. We are taking action to reduce water consumption in how we design our formulas and products – from research and innovation through to production and consumer use.

L’Oréal maps the volumes of water consumed in its factories to quantify each type of use and identify potential reductions. In 2024, 53% of the water used in L’Oréal’s industrial processes came from reused and recycled water. We are deploying water recycling systems across all our plants worldwide, with priorities assigned on the basis of local water stress situations.

We use eco-design techniques to minimise water footprint, such as developing no-rinse products or improving formulas that reduce the water required to rinse off and by creating two-in-one shampoos. Technological innovation is further driving water reduction: the L’Oréal Professionnel Water Saver showerhead, featuring a patented water fragmentation technology, helps salons save up to 69% water at the backbar. Deployed at more than 5,600 salons worldwide, it has helped save over 461 million litres of water, the equivalent of 184 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

L’Oréal continues to champion programmes promoting inclusion across its value chain. We aim to bring positive and sustainable impact to the communities and suppliers we engage with. L’Oréal’s Inclusive Sourcing programme, introduced in 2010, harnesses our purchasing power to promote social inclusion by allocating part of the Group’s global purchases to suppliers who employ and provide sustainable incomes to socially and economically vulnerable people. The programme operates in nearly 70 countries and has helped 106,000 people gain access to employment.

Diverse and complementary perspectives are essential sources of creativity and innovation. Through its BOLD corporate venture fund, L’Oréal invests in disruptive startups across the beauty value chain, including brands, tech and biotech. A recent addition to the BOLD portfolio is Ami Colé, founded by Diarrha N’Diaye, a Senegalese-American woman, who has created a line of clean, vegan cosmetics for women with melanin-rich skin types. To date, around 40% of companies invested in by BOLD are female founded or co-founded, in line with L’Oréal’s proud history of empowering women and working with them to build the world of tomorrow.

Today’s climate crisis demands collaboration with multiple partners. L’Oréal invests and develops climate, nature and social equity initiatives to share best practices and scale up solutions.

L’Oréal created its Climate Emergency Fund in 2023 to help build the resilience of vulnerable communities in the face of climate change-driven disasters. In 2024, the Fund partnered with Climate Resilience for All and India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association to develop a pioneering insurance policy designed to provide financial relief during extreme heat waves.

Since its creation in 2020, the L’Oréal Fund for Women has supported more than 530 NGOs around the world, supporting 4.8 million women and girls in vulnerable situations on their path to resilience, through social and professional integration, education, psychological support, or emergency relief. As part of capacity building efforts in 2024, the Fund organised its second seminar in Paris, providing leadership and management training to more than 50 non-profit leaders from 30 countries.

The Fondation L’Oréal Beauty For a Better Life programme delivers free, high-quality vocational beauty training to vulnerable women, empowering them socially and economically by providing the skills to improve their lives and gain access to employment or create their own businesses. Established in 2009, the programme provided over 20,900 women with vocational beauty training in 2024 (hairdressing, skincare and makeup) through free courses offered in 329 centres across 21 countries.