L’Oréal Water Policy

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At L’Oréal, water, as an essential component in creating and using our products, is at the heart of our business.

Our ability to operate effectively and meet all the needs of our consumers depends on sustainable water access, management and conservation.

That’s why L’Oréal’s has committed for years to ensure contribution to high water quality and sustainable water quantity across all its value chain, and throughout the watersheds and communities we serve and operate in.

We strive to achieve these outcomes through collective actions.

Commitments

At L’Oréal, together with our brands, we are committed to:

  • fostering water stewardship, through socially equitable, environmentally sustainable and economically beneficial use of water for everyone;
  • optimising water consumption in our operations and reducing the water footprint per finished product;
  • conserving water quality in all our sites and from the sourcing of raw materials to consumer use;
  • aligning our efforts with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and respecting the human right to water and sanitation;
  • innovating with new technologies throughout our products’ life cycle.

As part of L’Oréal’s sustainability programme, Sharing Beauty With All, the Group set itself a series of tangible commitments in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. These efforts go hand in hand with each other and progress in one areas is linked with impacts in other areas. As the relationship between climate change and water are inextricably linked, our commitments to reducing our carbon emissions, underpinned by the Science Based Targets (SBT), have an influence on our commitments to water. Within our comprehensive sustainability approach, we particularly address the topic of water in our Research, our Operations, and through the relationship with consumers. Together with our brands, we strive to achieve these targets by implementing the below.

With our consumers and stakeholders:

  • developing innovative new product, technologies and behaviours that help our consumers to reduce their water usage;
  • improving the environmental footprint of our formulas and in particular their water footprint;
  • collaborating with local communities to share best practices and experiences regarding water management, taking into consideration local needs in the watersheds where we operate;
  • engaging in ongoing dialogue with international organisations to improve awareness of the business impact on water.

In our operations:

  • optimising water consumption by using of our Waterscan tool in our factories to categorise water uses and establish standards for the Group;
  • reducing the water consumption for equipment cleaning by equipping all operational teams around the world with best practices and techniques to conserve water through efficient cleaning practices through our OPTImization Cleaning In Place Program;
  • implementing ‘waterloop factories’, where 100% of the water used for industrial processes is cleaned and recycled in a loop on-site for re-use.

In our supply chain:

  • measuring every L’Oréal product’s environmental and social performance through our Sustainable Product Optimization Tool using a lifecycle approach;
  • assessing suppliers’ sustainability policies, including their water policies, water consumption, and progress to achieving water targets;
  • ensuring responsible water management by requesting our suppliers to join the CDP Supply Chain Water Programme to build resilience against worsening water security.

We are dedicated to taking steps that go beyond simply managing our own water use to become a leader in water stewardship. Water stewardship is a journey and we are continuously looking for innovative ways to progress through collaboration and partnerships both locally and globally.


Tracking our progress

In order to ensure that this policy is implemented through our whole organisation, we periodically monitor and evaluate the results. The Group report its performance in terms of sustainable water management through the CDP Water Programme, as well as in our sustainability report.