L’Oreal committed to being green

NEW YORK In conjunction with the celebration of Earth Day on April 22, L’Oreal renewed its commitment to reducing environmental impact and resource use by setting green goals and promoting an eco-responsible business model.

“At the dawn of the 21st century, the world’s leading beauty company needs to be an authentic example in terms of sustainable development. This long-term, self-imposed commitment sets the bar high and we intend to put all our forces behind it to ensure that we rise to the challenge,” stated Jean-Paul Agon, CEO of L’Oreal.

In the field of sustainable development, L’Oreal has established three long-term environmental 2005-2015 targets for its factories and warehouses: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce water use per unit of finished product and reduce waste generated per unit of finished product.

Over the past year, the beauty company has reduced total CO2 emissions by 6.6% (-11.5% since 2005), reduced water use per finished product by 3.8% (-13% since 2005) and reduced water per finished product by 0.5% (-10.1% since 2005) while increasing its recycling rate to 95%.

In addition, L’Oreal stated that it makes use of several different internationally recognized environmental, occupational health and safety management systems including ISO 14000 and OHSAS 18000. The company stated that it is committed to “an eco-responsible approach focused on understanding all the impacts of its business and considers all stages in the research process and selection and procurement of raw materials, from dialogue with the suppliers to the end of the life of the finished products.” The company noted that this approach “demonstrates a new step in fulfilling L’Oreal’s commitment to address the environment expectations of consumers” worldwide.”

For these accomplishments and others, the beauty company has been recognized as one of the 100 most sustainable companies by Innovest and Corporate Knights in 2008 and 2009.