The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) has unveiled an ambitious programme of additional environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals to be implemented between 2020 and 2025
President and Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Freda outlined the goals at a recent investor day in New York City. The beauty group said the enhanced ESG programme will allow it to continue to advance a legacy of responsible corporate citizenship.
“Consumers and employees are increasingly drawn to purpose-driven brands and companies,” said Freda.
“We have a long history of giving back and improving the places where we live and work. We are proud of our many achievements in this area. We are taking our mission to a higher level and accelerating our ESG efforts by announcing new goals, which will be integrated into our strategy and our business operations.”
Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability Nancy Mahon added, “Our brands such as Aveda, M∙A∙C and Origins have historically been leaders in sustainability and citizenship and have a strong record of delivering meaningful impact to our consumers, employees and the communities in which we source and make our products.
“Our company-wide ESG goals are part of our mission to create a more sustainable and beautiful world and underscore our deep commitment to innovate and embed sustainable principles and social purpose across every aspect of our business – for the long term.”
This story is part of our regular Duty Calls series. Duty Calls shines a light on laudable examples of altruism and sustainability within the travel retail industry. |
The Environmental, Social and Governance goals are:
Responsible Sourcing
- As part of ELC’s continuous efforts to address issues that may exist within complex supply chains, by 2025 the group will have identified sensitive ingredient supply chains and developed robust biodiversity and social action plans for them.
- At least 90% of its palm-based ingredients (palm oil and its derivatives) will be certified sustainable from RSPO physical supply chains by 2025.
Emissions
- By 2020, ELC will build upon its current Net Zero carbon emissions commitment and set a science-based target covering Scopes 1, 2, and 3.
Packaging
- By 2025, 75-100% of its packaging will be recyclable, refillable, reusable, recycled or recoverable. In achieving this goal, ELC will increase the amount of post-consumer recycled material in product packaging by up to 50%.
- The group’s ambition is to use responsibly-sourced paper products whenever possible with a goal to have 100% of forest-based fiber cartons FSC certified by 2025.
Ingredient Transparency
- ELC will develop a glossary of key ingredients that includes descriptions of the ingredients’ purposes and will make this information available online by 2025.
Learning / Employee Safety
- ELC is committed that, by 2020, 100% of employees worldwide will have access to training on basic sustainability and corporate social impact programmes.
- The group will drive safety to continue decreasing the total incident rate* to ensure continued world class-leading levels, with a goal of 0.15 by 2025.
Social Investments & Employee Engagement
- By 2020, company programmes and grants focused on health, education and environmental programs will impact the well-being of 10 million individuals around the world.
- By 2025, ELC will engage 50% of eligible employees in regional, brand or local volunteer programmes such as ELC Good Works, the Breast Cancer Campaign and the MAC Global Volunteer programme.
- Each brand will focus on and support at least one social or environmental cause by 2025.