Green beauty: L’Oréal partners with Alibaba, key suppliers to decarbonise China’s US$80 billion cosmetics industry

L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, wants to utilise China’s role as the world’s biggest e-commerce market and a fast-developing digital economy to tackle the beauty industry’s environmental problem.

The company hopes a partnership with China’s e-commerce platforms and major suppliers in its North Asia region will help Asian consumers better perceive the value of sustainability and make greener consumption choices, said Janet Neo, L’Oréal’s chief sustainability officer for North Asia and China.

“The Chinese e-commerce market has high penetration, big volume and huge market size,” Neo said. “It presents a real opportunity in the sense that if we can promote the right behaviours, then lasting change could be just around the corner.”

The French company and 10 key suppliers pledged last week at China’s first carbon-neutrality expo in Shanghai to reduce the industry’s supply-chain emissions of greenhouse gases. Signers of the declaration include Microsoft China, internet giant Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao and hyaluronic acid producer Bloomage Biotechnology.

The move follows the signing of a three-year partnership between L’Oréal and Alibaba during French president Emmanuel Macron’s three-day visit to China in April, where the companies agreed to work together to develop new products and create circular-economy solutions in China’s beauty and personal-care industry. Alibaba owns the Post.