Product Responsibility
As a leader in high-end beauty, we are focused on creating the world’s most sought-after products. We are committed to providing consumers with superior performance and luxury, as well as uncompromising safety and quality. The products we develop are designed to ensure they meet our high standards for safety and efficacy. The process of bringing our products to market is multifaceted, from formulation to packaging, with numerous experts contributing their knowledge to the process. We strive to make this process transparent and to integrate sustainability into our entire product value chain.
Product Formulation
Our innovative product formulations allow us to be at the forefront of the high-end beauty industry. We do this by leveraging the deep expertise of our scientists and researchers to create breakthrough, high-performance products. We strive to meet consumer preferences and needs by offering a wide range of products, including those geared toward consumers looking for natural or vegan ingredients, ingredient-free formulations or products formulated specifically for their skin.
Consumer interest in ingredients for beauty and personal care products has soared in the past decade. Consumers want to know what is in the products they use, what those ingredients do and whether they are safe. We have always believed that increased dialogue with consumers about our product formulations is good for everyone. We have furthered our commitment to transparency by setting a goal for our brands to develop a glossary of key ingredients by the end of calendar year 2025. We invite you to explore some of our brand’s vocabularies.
We are proponents of green chemistry and have a strong foundation for advancing our goal of embedding green chemistry principles throughout the product development process. Our goal is to integrate these principles not only into our products, but into our thinking, preparing for a future where all chemistry will be green chemistry, sustainability and product formulation go hand in hand.
Central to our approach is our Green Scoring Program, developed in collaboration with experts from a leading university and officially launched in fiscal 2020. The program provides our formulators with a quantifiable way to benchmark and inform their formulation choices based on these principles of green chemistry, specifically through the lens of human health, ecosystem health and the environment. Estée Lauder has earned a Green Score for all of its active ingredients and formulations.1 We have implemented a robust training program for our formulation team in the Green Score Program.
1 Excludes ingredients and formulations made by third-party manufacturers.
Sustainability in Luxury Packaging
The packaging of a product usually provides the first high-touch moment for our consumers, giving them a sense of prestige and luxury at their fingertips. At the same time, the packaging must protect the product inside, requiring robustness and durability. Premium packaging offers great opportunities for innovation because it plays such an important role in the consumer experience. Integrating sustainability concepts into packaging design is a strategic imperative, and we believe our creativity and ingenuity can help advance solutions for our brands and the personal care and cosmetics industry as a whole.
Packaging Sustainability Guide
We focus on reducing the potential environmental impact of packaging throughout its lifecycle. Our Packaging Sustainability Guides outline our approach, definitions, material selection guidelines and FAQs. They outline our priorities, which include
Minimizing and removing packaging
Designing for reuse and refillability
Recyclability in architectural design
Increasing the amount of post-consumer recycled (PCR) materials in packaging
Replacing petroleum-based plastics with bioplastics (if bioplastics can be recycled and do not contaminate traditional recycling processes)
Each year, we provide training on the guidelines to our packaging developers, marketing staff and procurement team. In addition to the guidelines, we use other tools to develop responsible packaging. These include custom-developed methods to calculate sustainability profiles and estimated associated greenhouse gas emissions for various product packaging forms, as well as life-cycle assessments that are reviewed by third parties as needed to provide a holistic view of packaging impacts.
Reducing plastic use
We have developed an internal plastics guide to help reduce virgin and non-recyclable plastics throughout our business. The guidelines are designed to advance our commitment to incorporate more sustainable concepts into our packaging, products, offices, retail stores and other facilities. To learn more, visit our Plastics Perspectives.
Luxury Packaging Sustainability Partnership
We approach packaging in a spirit of collaboration and innovation. We work with companies, academia and consortia to help deepen our collective understanding of packaging sustainability for the benefit of all involved.
Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics (SPICE)
We are members of the Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics (SPICE), a group of organizations in the cosmetics industry working together to shape the future of sustainable packaging. Our membership allows us to maintain our voting rights, ensuring that we have a voice in important discussions and co-create methods and tools to advance the future of sustainable packaging for cosmetics.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation
We are also a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which brings together leaders and innovators in business, government and academia to contribute to society’s transition to a circular economy. Through our membership, ELC employees have access to a range of educational training on the importance of moving to a circular economy and how industry can help accelerate that transition.
Association of Plastics Recyclers (APR)
In fiscal 2020, we joined the Association of Plastics Recyclers (APR), a North American trade association representing companies that acquire, reprocess and sell more than 90 percent of the post-consumer plastics processing capacity in North America. Being a member of APR gives us access to industry experts and a better understanding of how to design recyclable plastics.
Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC)
We are proud to be a founding member of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), which brings together businesses, educational institutions and government agencies to strengthen and advance the business case for more sustainable packaging. Through SPC, our 250 packaging developers, marketing and creative designers are using an online learning platform to access training courses on topics such as sustainable packaging, composting, bio-resins, marine plastics and advanced recycling, which is the chemical breakdown that converts plastic waste into essential components to rebuild new polymers.
