The winners of this year’s Sustainable Beauty Awards were announced last week in Paris. About 120 executives from the beauty industry attended the awards reception, hosted at the Crowne Plaza Paris République hotel on the evening of 23rd October. The event was co-hosted alongside the European edition of the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit.
The Sustainable Beauty Awards celebrate and recognise sustainability excellence in the cosmetic and personal care industry among. The judging panel has selected winners in five categories, among 23 contenders shortlisted from about 100 entries.
1. New Sustainable Product
Henkel is the gold winner with its Authentic Beauty Concept Refill Station. Almost 500 salons in Europe are using the refill bar which enables customers to refill bottles that are made from 90% recycled plastic. The personal care formulations contain 95% natural ingredients and are certified by the Vegan Society.
Lumene Group is silver winner with its Nordic Bloom Berry Pre-Retinol Facial Oil. The product contains 98% upcycled ingredients and 99% naturally derived ingredients that originate from Nordic forests.
2. Sustainable Ingredient
In this category, Croda Beauty is gold winner with Ameyezing 4.0. The active ingredient is eco-designed, based on zerumbone obtained from the supercritical CO2 extraction of organic Zingiber zerumbet. It is ethically sourced and COSMOS approved.
P2 Science gets silver with Citropol DE-4. The polymer can be used in place of high molecular weight silicones; it is made from terpenes sourced from side streams of the pulp and paper industry.
3. Sustainable Packaging
The two joint gold winners are Lush and O’right. Lush is using certified Prevented Ocean Plastic for its 100ml, 250m and 500ml bottles. The plastic material is collected from coastal areas in Indonesia and recycled; it has enabled Lush to avoid using over 3 million plastic bottles.
O’right is joint gold winner for its O’right | PRO packaging; it is made from “eco-electric” furnace glass bottles, paired with recyclable refill packs that include some PCR materials such as rPE, rPP, and rPET. The packaging has resulted in a 66-80% reduction in packaging-related carbon emissions.
4. Sustainability Pioneer
AAK Personal Care is gold winner. It gets recognition for addressing climate change and reducing its carbon footprint in sourcing and operational practices. AAK is one of the first companies to secure Science Based Targets initiative approval for its Forest, Land, and Agriculture (FLAG) targets, which commit to a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (compared to its 2019 baseline).
P2 Science is the silver winner. The company has designed a new manufacturing process that is based on the 12 principles of green chemistry. It is using this to create its Citropol® product line.
5. Sustainability Leadership
Cosmetics Europe, the European trade association for the cosmetics and personal care industry, receives gold for its Commit for Our Planet initiative. Introduced in December 2022, it aims to reduce the environmental footprint of the cosmetics industry in Europe and across the value chain through collaborative efforts and actions. It has a framework of voluntary commitments that cover climate, packaging and nature, with targeted actions and milestones to 2033.
The ingredients company Croda Beauty receives silver. It is one of the pioneering firms to sign up to Science Based Targets, committed to be being net zero by 2050, and has ambitions to be Nature Positive.
