These Aveda products have all received Gold Certification by the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA).

Straight Talk from the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit

Written by John A. Delfausse, Estée Lauder

Practical sustainability initiatives for the beauty industry were extensively discussed at the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, held in Paris at the end of October. The summit was organized by Organic Monitor and brought together 180 senior executives from 26 countries. Practical approaches to lower environmental and social impacts were the central theme of the three-day summit, with several speakers calling for positive action from the beauty industry. Sustainable Packaging was the focus of the last session of the conference. Key speakers explored the gamut of sustainable packaging solutions available to beauty companies. Summit participants learned that cosmetic companies mainly focus on recycling and ecodesign to lower their packaging footprint, whereas the use of bioplastics remains low. Aveda was commended for its sustainable approach to packaging. Here, Estée Lauder’s John Delfausse shares highlights of his presentation at the Summit.

Last month I had the opportunity to present at the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit in Paris on the subject of Aveda’s Journey to Sustainable Packaging. Since I have been championing the opportunities that the “Cradle to Cradle” philosophy offer to the cosmetic industry, it was opportune that I was able to do this in concert with Michael Braungart, one of the Cradle to Cradle concept’s authors. We both put the case for Cradle to Cradle to the audience.

The beauty of the concept is that there is no call to reduce or minimize the package you design, but rather to maximize its impact and utility and to meet or surpass your customer’s expectations. There is no call to reduce packaging, but rather to optimize the use of renewable and recycled materials and to ensure that you have a solution to recover them at end of life; all of this while using renewable energy in all processes.

My talk went on to define sustainable packaging as set out in the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s definition. Since the definition is a long list of opportunities on the road to sustainable packaging, I have chosen to lay out the concept as three simple ideas: Responsible Sourcing, Responsible Manufacturing Practices and Responsible Product Stewardship.

Aveda has come a long way in meeting many of our goals for sustainable packaging.We have maximized our recycled material content and are constantly working to increase this. We now have several packages that are at 100% post consumer recycled (PCR) content. We were the first beauty company to use 100% renewable energy in the manufacture of our products, and many of our packaging suppliers are participating in this by using renewable energy as well.As you may know, Aveda has had a very successful product cap collection and recycling program for the last three years, and will soon be starting a pilot in our stores to collect all of our packaging at end of life.

The challenge of course is in moving to Cradle to Cradle around the world.

Since most of the companies in our industry market our products on a global basis, we have to meet the regulatory requirements of all of the countries in which we do business. It was great to be in Paris and to see that there is interest in not only meeting regulations there, but also in becoming more responsible as we develop our products moving forward. Finding clean and reliable sources of recycled material and renewable feedstock is a challenge.Recovery programs abound in the European Union, but are only just starting to get legs in Asia. Often these programs are focused on beverage or laundry detergent bottles and not on the components or materials commonly used in the cosmetics industry. High Density Polyethylene PCR is harder to come by in Europe because plastic milk jugs are not as prevalent as they are in the United States, and in Asia, the quality of the recycled material is unreliable.

Another issue in global distribution is the requirement in many countries to minimize our packaging headspace and weight.In the EU we pay green dot fees based on the weight and materials we use. There are also excess space rules in countries such as Korea, Taiwan and China as well as in the EU. These regulations do not consider Cradle to Cradle design.

The reality is that we should all be optimizing our packaging whenever we can, both because of its impact on the environment and the opportunity for cost savings. If we are to realize the dream of Cradle to Cradle design, we will also need to impress upon those that regulate packaging our responsible practices in the sourcing, manufacturing and recovery of our materials.

About the author
John A. Delfausse is vice president global package development and chief environmental officer, Estée Lauder Corporate Packaging. He is responsible for implementing Estée Lauder’s commitment to the environment by making environmentally conscious product packaging decisions, while developing a supplier base to partner with Estée Lauder in this mission. Since joining Aveda in 2000, he has driven packaging to new levels of environmental leadership.