The French supplier of specialty ingredients for the beauty and health industries is strengthening its environmental performance through a cross-functional program that integrates water management across the entire product life cycle.
Dubbed Poseidon, the project aims to reduce water consumption in the company’s industrial processes, where its primarily used in equipment cleaning.
The program focuses on three complementary pillars: reducing water withdrawals by optimizing manufacturing and cleaning cycles; maximizing the reuse of water and energy already mobilized in production processes; integrating water considerations at the design stage, through eco-design principles.
Within the company, this approach mobilizes teams across R&D, HSE, Quality, Production and Industrial Maintenance, driving long-term changes in operational practices and fostering a shared culture of continuous improvement.
Gattefossé highlights that beyond environmental gains, the project has transformed industrial practices by actively engaging teams on the ground. Operator training, reassessment of existing standards and the testing of new cleaning methods have helped to embed water management sustainably into daily operations.
“Poseidon has reshaped operating procedures while improving the reliability of our installations. The project demonstrates that reducing water use can go hand in hand with industrial performance, through responsible,” says Elisa Ropagnol, Group Director of Industrial Operations at Gattefossé.
Within two years, the project has already enabled the company to reduce by 14% its water consumption per ton produced.
To take things further, Gattefossé has planned EUR 2.2 million in investments over the 2026-2027 period to expand this initiative. The goal is to reduce water consumption during industrial cleaning through the deployment of CIP (Cleaning-In-Place) systems.
