This chapter reports on the social, environmental and societal policies and progress achieved by the Group, and presents the assessment of the second generation of L’Oréal’s sustainable development commitments at the end of 2021: L’Oréal for the Future programme. This chapter forms the Group’s Non-Financial Performance Statement.
L’Oréal’s commitments and policies contribute to 16 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals(1).
L’Oréal’s strategy is based on Glocalization that is the globalisation of brands with profound understanding and respect for local differences to meet the beauty expectations and needs of women and men around the world, while at the same time being an environmental and societal leader.
L’Oréal’s Ethical Principles – Integrity, Respect, Courage and Transparency – guide the Group’s development and help establish its reputation. These principles are the basis of its sustainable development, social and societal responsibility, compliance and philanthropy policies.
For many years, L’Oréal has begun a profound transformation of its model, in all areas, to adapt to the great changes in the world. Sustainable development is a fundamental pillar of this transformation and a strategic priority for all of the teams. In the firm belief that sustainable development is an essential factor for success and durability, L’Oréal is deploying an ambitious social, societal and environmental policy, which is shared by its management and teams.
In June 2020, L’Oréal initiated the second generation of its commitments to sustainable development, under the umbrella of a programme called L’Oréal for the Future, with a new set of particularly ambitious and concrete targets for 2030, in order to cover all the impacts associated with its value chain: its production and distribution sites as well as its supply chains and the impacts associated with the use of products by consumers.
In 2015, the Group also undertook to define Science-Based Targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions across its entire value chain and over the long term, in accordance with the Paris Agreement on climate change. In December 2017, the SBT initiative validated the Group’s proposal and L’Oréal committed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions on its Scopes 1, 2, and 3 by 25% in absolute value by 2030, compared to the 2016 baseline.
The L’Oréal for the Future programme, which is subject to public reporting every year, is based on three pillars:
To support this process, the Group has developed a strong governance structure.
Every year, the Board of Directors determines L’Oréal’s strategic directions, which integrate the challenges of climate change and, more generally, the issues of sustainable development, as well as the Group’s sense of purpose (raison d’être) to “Create the Beauty that moves the world”. In order to monitor the determination and successful implementation of these strategic directions, the Board of Directors can rely on its four Board Committees that are responsible for investigating the issues within their area of expertise in the determination and monitoring of the non-financial strategy (see section 2.3.2.1. “Main Remits and Internal Rules” of this document). The Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer reports on the Group’s activities to the Board of Directors every year and to each meeting of the Strategy and Sustainability Committee. Before each meeting, all members of the Board of Directors receive a status update on the L’Oréal for the Future programme that details the programme’s specific advances.
In order to implement this comprehensive plan for the transformation of the Group, which affects all Divisions, Zones and support functions, the Chief Executive Officer can rely on the commitment of every member of the Executive Committee within their respective scope. The Executive Committee works with the CEO to implement strategic directions regarding non-financial matters. Status updates on sustainable development issues are conducted regularly to define and implement the necessary action plans. A network of sustainability leaders, members of the Management Committees is responsible for the operational deployment of the L’Oréal for the Future programme in each Division, each geographic Zone and each entity.
More specifically, within the Executive Committee, the Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer ensures strategic consistency between the measures, the Group takes to integrate sustainable development across its entire value chain and its charitable contributions. She is responsible for the formulation and implementation of the sustainable development strategy, assesses and manages risks and opportunities related to environmental and societal challenges at Group level through the action plans of the sustainability programmes (Sharing Beauty with All and, now, L’Oréal for the Future).
(1) L’Oréal’s contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is detailed in section 4.1 of this document.
