The L’Oréal Group has announced a €50 million support fund for vulnerable women affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The beauty giant, which has historically been committed to supporting women, is “still there for them today because women are disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 crisis”, particularly in terms of job and income loss.
They make up a large majority of single-parent families, and are increasingly forced to turn to food banks to meet their most basic needs, according to L’Oréal. At the same time, domestic and sexual violence has increased worldwide, including in France (up 30%), mainly due to the effects of lockdown measures.
To directly help struggling women, L’Oréal has created a €50 million charitable endowment fund to support field organisations and local charities to fight poverty, help women achieve social and professional integration, provide emergency assistance to refugee and disabled women, prevent violence against women and support victims.
EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE
“The Covid-19 crisis spares no one, but it also exacerbates existing inequalities, with particularly devastating effects on people who were already struggling socially or economically or are victims of abuse, especially women. It is essential that we take action to support the most vulnerable women,” explained Alexandra Palt, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer of the L’Oréal Group. “This social crisis has not eclipsed the need for a strong commitment to the environment. If we are to find a sustainable and inclusive way to move past this crisis, we must also focus on preventing climate change and the erosion of biodiversity, which now threaten to even more profoundly and violently shake our lives, our societies, and our economies, once again with women as the first victims.”
The €50 million fund will support organisations to help highly vulnerable women, the first victims of the social and economic crisis generated by the pandemic, thanks to the creation of the L’Oréal for the future programme – a social and environmental solidarity initiative that also aims to protect the environment. Approximately €100 million will be dedicated to help regenerate damaged natural ecosystems and efforts to prevent climate change, confirmed the beauty group.
ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES
In addition to its ongoing long-term efforts to reduce its environmental impact, the L’Oréal Group will be investing €100 million to act upon two key environmental challenges. Firstly, to regenerate damaged natural ecosystems, it will invest €50 million to finance marine and forest ecosystem restoration projects that also create new social and economic development opportunities for the populations that depend on these ecosystems (developing sustainable agriculture and fishing, eco-tourism, sale of carbon credits). The L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration aims to restore one million hectares of degraded ecosystems, capture 15 to 20 million tonnes of CO2 and create hundreds of job opportunities by 2030.
Secondly, another €50 million will be invested in projects to prevent climate change. With this fund, the L’Oréal Group aims to contribute to the quest for solutions and the creation of business models that support the development of a circular economy, particularly in terms of recycling and management of plastic waste.
HISTORIC COMMITMENTS
The L’Oréal Group plans to present its new sustainability programme for 2030 in late June, which will complete the L’Oréal for the future plan announced today, to “ensure that all of its activities are respectful of the planetary boundaries”.
Commenting on the launch of the L’Oréal for the future programme, Jean-Paul Agon, Chairman and CEO of L’Oréal, stated: Over the coming months, our societies will face social crises giving rise to situations of great human suffering, particularly for the most vulnerable. At the same time, we are fully aware that environmental challenges are increasingly pressing. It is essential not to step back from the sustainable transformation that the world needs. We therefore wish to reaffirm our commitment to the environment and to the preservation of biodiversity, and to help mitigate the social crisis for women. These two causes reflect the values and the historic commitment of L’Oréal.”
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
L’Oréal’s sustainable development programme, along with its strong commitment to ethics, its policy of promoting diversity and its philanthropic endeavours contributes to 15 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals set in 2015 by the United Nations.
As part of its Sharing Beauty With All initiative, L’Oréal’s sustainable development programme launched in 2013, has made tangible commitments for 2020 covering all of its impacts and its entire value chain, from product design to ingredient sourcing to production and distribution.
By the end of 2019, L’Oréal confirmed that it has achieved:
· 78% reduction in CO2 emissions from its factories and distribution centres compared to 2005, with a 37% increase in production volumes during the same period;
· Improved social or environmental profile for 85% of its products launched in 2019, since all new Group products are developed using the ecodesign tool SPOT;
· 90,635 people from struggling communities have received support in finding employment thanks to L’Oréal’s Solidarity Sourcing programme;
· For the fourth year running, L’Oréal has received three As, the best score possible, across all of the CDP’s ratings on three key areas: climate protection, sustainable water management, and forests. L’Oréal is the only company worldwide to have earned the CDP’s 3 A rating for four years running.
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