L’Oreal Empowers Women To Battle Climate Change
Dailycsr.com – 24 April 2017 – In the month of September, the “L’Oreal Group” made an announcement about its plans of building “two sizable on-site solar arrays” which will be located at “two of its U.S. production plants”. The said move takes the “world’s leading beauty company” into power its “entire U.S. manufacturing operation with clean energy”.
L’Oreal finds itself among the “top 25 corporate investors” of renewable “energy resources”, while these “new installations” scheduled to go into operation in the later part of this year will take its “total count” to sixteen. However, the locations of these two plants could come as a surprise, as the company chose the “heart of Arkansas” and “Kentucky” for the above mentioned installation projects.
As the chief sustainability officer at L’Oreal, Alexandra Palt, stated:
“We have a culture where it’s authorized to have initiatives to try new things, to find solutions, to propose solutions. People on the ground have the possibility to bring new ideas, new investments, new solutions.
“We have clear targets and goals. Every plant and every factory has to find solutions to reduce its carbon emissions, significantly. This is not a choice, a nice-to-have, at L’Oreal. This is part of your job description, and your bonus is part of this as well. For brand managers, for country managers, for the operation teams, it’s part of the job. You’re evaluated on that.”
Palt visited New York amid a “late-season snowstorm” to discuss about its commitment towards becoming “the first corporate sponsor of C40’s Women4Climate initiative”, the latter is a programme that intends to support women to fight climate change from around the globe. L’Oreal has specific intentions of providing funds to researches that would investigate the “link between gender equality issues and negative climate impacts”. In Palt’s words:
“I would like to encourage women to become climate leaders, because we are going to be touched in very specific way. First, we are touched as primary caretakers. … That will lead a lot of women to become more active. We are also more vulnerable. Women are more vulnerable in developing countries, where a lot of their income comes from agriculture. They are responsible for getting food; they are responsible for getting water.”
L’Oreal’s climate change battle towards women comes from the fact that it is “pretty dependent on female consumers”, while “46 percent of its board members and 58 percent of L’Oreal’s brands” are under women management. Furthermore, Heather Clancy also informed:
“The face of the L’Oreal sustainability strategy is a program called Sharing Beauty With All, which summarizes the various declared targets that it hopes to reach by the 2020 timeframe. Many of these goals will probably seem fairly familiar to sustainability professionals, such as reducing the environmental footprint of the company’s various product formulas, eliminating strategies that could cause deforestation or conserving water. In 2016, for example, L’Oreal reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 67 percent from its 2005 baseline, while increasing production by 29 percent”.
A statement from the manager of the plant, Eric Fox, reads:
“This next phase of our on-site solar installation not only paves the way for expanded low-carbon manufacturing, but also can serve as a catalyst for continued investment in renewable energy in the Natural State.
Moreover, Palt recalls:
“I was very committed to feminism when I was young. That was my first profession. … I kind of fell asleep for the last 15 years, because I thought that a lot was given. Working in a company where women get promoted, suddenly this new era makes me aware that nothing is given ― neither on women’s rights, neither on climate change. We have to stay very alert in order to continue very actively and very strongly on fighting for our rights.”
References:
www.greenbiz.com
L’Oreal finds itself among the “top 25 corporate investors” of renewable “energy resources”, while these “new installations” scheduled to go into operation in the later part of this year will take its “total count” to sixteen. However, the locations of these two plants could come as a surprise, as the company chose the “heart of Arkansas” and “Kentucky” for the above mentioned installation projects.
As the chief sustainability officer at L’Oreal, Alexandra Palt, stated:
“We have a culture where it’s authorized to have initiatives to try new things, to find solutions, to propose solutions. People on the ground have the possibility to bring new ideas, new investments, new solutions.
“We have clear targets and goals. Every plant and every factory has to find solutions to reduce its carbon emissions, significantly. This is not a choice, a nice-to-have, at L’Oreal. This is part of your job description, and your bonus is part of this as well. For brand managers, for country managers, for the operation teams, it’s part of the job. You’re evaluated on that.”
Palt visited New York amid a “late-season snowstorm” to discuss about its commitment towards becoming “the first corporate sponsor of C40’s Women4Climate initiative”, the latter is a programme that intends to support women to fight climate change from around the globe. L’Oreal has specific intentions of providing funds to researches that would investigate the “link between gender equality issues and negative climate impacts”. In Palt’s words:
“I would like to encourage women to become climate leaders, because we are going to be touched in very specific way. First, we are touched as primary caretakers. … That will lead a lot of women to become more active. We are also more vulnerable. Women are more vulnerable in developing countries, where a lot of their income comes from agriculture. They are responsible for getting food; they are responsible for getting water.”
L’Oreal’s climate change battle towards women comes from the fact that it is “pretty dependent on female consumers”, while “46 percent of its board members and 58 percent of L’Oreal’s brands” are under women management. Furthermore, Heather Clancy also informed:
“The face of the L’Oreal sustainability strategy is a program called Sharing Beauty With All, which summarizes the various declared targets that it hopes to reach by the 2020 timeframe. Many of these goals will probably seem fairly familiar to sustainability professionals, such as reducing the environmental footprint of the company’s various product formulas, eliminating strategies that could cause deforestation or conserving water. In 2016, for example, L’Oreal reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 67 percent from its 2005 baseline, while increasing production by 29 percent”.
A statement from the manager of the plant, Eric Fox, reads:
“This next phase of our on-site solar installation not only paves the way for expanded low-carbon manufacturing, but also can serve as a catalyst for continued investment in renewable energy in the Natural State.
Moreover, Palt recalls:
“I was very committed to feminism when I was young. That was my first profession. … I kind of fell asleep for the last 15 years, because I thought that a lot was given. Working in a company where women get promoted, suddenly this new era makes me aware that nothing is given ― neither on women’s rights, neither on climate change. We have to stay very alert in order to continue very actively and very strongly on fighting for our rights.”
References:
www.greenbiz.com
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