L’Oréal North Asia Zone achieves carbon neutrality across all sites

Mainland China was the first market worldwide to achieve carbon neutrality for all L’Oréal sites in 2019. Now with Japan achieving carbon neutrality for its sites in July 2022, L’Oréal North Asia became the first zone of the L’Oréal Group to achieve carbon neutrality for all the sites the beauty giant operates. The North Asia Zone spans five geographic markets, including: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Collective efforts to reduce CO2 emissions

"With the United Nations warning that every country, city, organisation should adopt plans for net zero – the call to act has seen L’Oréal North Asia Zone rise to the challenge and show true leadership. As a company, we recognized the gravity of the global environmental crisis more than 20 years ago and began reducing our environmental footprint in our manufacturing plants and distribution centers back in 2009. With the launch of our ambitious sustainability commitment in 2020 - L’Oréal for the Future - which states that all L’Oréal sites worldwide must reach carbon neutrality by 2025, the North Asia Zone accelerated its efforts to achieve its goals, which we are immensely proud of," said Mr. Fabrice Megarbane, President of L’Oréal North Asia and CEO of L’Oréal China.

Mr. Megarbane announced the news at 2022 L’Oréal North Asia & China Indirect Sourcing Supplier Day in Shanghai, where the company brought together around 100 strategic suppliers and key stakeholders to discuss collective efforts and solutions on CO2 emissions reduction.

A variety of strategic approaches

In North Asia, L’Oréal have implemented dynamic measures and a variety of strategic approaches across the different sites that have contributed to the goal of reaching carbon neutrality for each of them.

– Generating renewable energy onsite. In both Mainland China and South Korea, CO2 emissions reduction through installing onsite renewable energy generating facilities has been an important contribution to the overall effort. At L’Oréal’s BeautyCos plant in Suzhou, onsite solar panels have been generating 1.2M kWh of electricity every year since 2015. Similarly, the rooftop solar panels installed at L’Oréal’s distribution centre in Suzhou provided 100% of its 4.4M kWh electricity needs since 2019.

– Onsite facilities adopting diverse renewable energy solutions. L’Oréal’s BeautyCos plant is a showcase of how diverse sustainable energy solutions work together to achieve CO2emissions reduction goals. In addition to its solar power generating system, a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system was built onsite to use biogas to produce steam, electricity and heat with high efficiency. The biogas is generated by a biomass energy project at Suzhou Industrial Park, which uses kitchen and landscaping waste as raw materials for energy generation. Combining solar power generation, CHP system installation and sourcing renewable electricity nearby, BeautyCos achieved carbon neutrality in 2019.

– Sourcing local renewable energy in five markets. In addition to having onsite facilities generating renewable energy, L’Oréal sites in North Asia aimed to source local renewable energy.

In Mainland China, L’Oréal’s Yichang Tianmei Plant achieved carbon neutrality with 100% use of hydropower in 2018. Other L’Oréal China offices and campuses adopted solutions to reduce drastically their CO2 emissions through partnerships with a renewable energy project in Jiangsu Province.

L’Oréal Korea started participating in Korea’s RE100-system (a global initiative on renewable power) in 2021 and received renewable energy certification from Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) for the energy used across all its offices and distribution centres. In its Japanese plant in Gotemba, L’Oréal has installed new electrical boilers using renewable electricity.

L’Oréal Japan met its carbon neutrality goals by participating in the Green Power and Heat Certificates initiative for its research & innovation centre, offices and plant. The initiative sponsors renewable energy generation facilities that are validated by the local authorities that encompass areas such as wind, biomass, hydro, and solar power stations.

L’Oréal Taiwan is the first company in the market to channel its renewable energy efforts through Power Purchasing Agreements with local authorities and the landlord of the commercial building where it operates. This enabled the organization to achieve its carbon neutrality status in late 2021.

Similarly, L’Oréal Hong Kong site achieved carbon neutrality in 2020 with the implementation of energy efficiency measures the installation of LED lighting to reduce energy consumption and sourcing local renewable electricity for its office.

"From today, in North Asia, each L’Oréal product is produced and stored in plants and warehouses that are carbon neutral. Going forward, we will further collaborate with our stakeholders to reduce CO2 emissions along the entire industry value chain through product innovation and consumer empowerment programs, transportation upgrading and collaboration with strategic suppliers," Mr. Pankaj Gupta, SVP of L’Oréal North Asia and China Operations.

The L’Oréal Group has set long-term goals to reduce all its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030 in absolute terms compared to 2016, and aims to reach net zero emissions by 2050. These goals were set in accordance with the Science Based Targets, which aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C, according to climate scientist recommendations, as set by the Paris Agreement.