The luxury brand encouraging consumers to trace the production of their beauty products.
ADVERTISEMENTGuerlain, the beauty brand devoted to ‘promoting self-esteem’, is aiming to reduce the environmental impact caused by the creation of its products, by committing to a new initiative in the name of Sustainable Development.
The luxury beauty house has revealed its new transparency and traceability digital platform, ‘Bee Respect’ which allows consumers to understand the life cycle of their products and what goes on behind the scenes. Guerlain invites its French consumers to understand the origins of their ingredients, find out more about their manufacturers and to follow the steps involved in the production of their high quality products, including packaging details. From what we can glean, it seems Guerlain would like customers to see how products go from fields of flowers, to ending up in stores, as they say,
“Du champ de fleurs à nos boutiques.”
“We worked with all the teams involved to collect and compile all the data available on each product’s life cycle. The tool provides an overview of the product, so everyone could work on their environmental impact, based on this information,” explains Sandrine Sommer the Sustainable Development Director of Guerlain. “We developed the platform hand in hand with Product DNA, because the traceability of a cosmetic product is complex, especially when it is composed of many ingredients,” she adds.
The traceability tool, available in French, displays 80% of every skincare formula’s ingredients using a map to show you where your product was sourced, made and packaged. Here’s what it looks like:
“Bees, the alchemists of nature. And Guerlain, the alchemist of beauty”
Guerlain’s motto certainly suggests that the House is dedicated to implementing a sustainability strategy and to pass on their heritage to future generations. Therefore, the new traceability platform is just the newest improvement in a longer process. For 10 years now, Guerlain has placed Sustainable Development at the centre of its creations and at the heart of its corporate approach. Since the 19th century, the symbol of the House has been a bee, demonstrating Guerlain’s close relationship with the flying insects and a desire to protect them. To help preserve the beauty of the natural world, Guerlain puts biodiversity at the forefront of its priorities by supporting ecological, socio-economic and cultural approaches to handling natural materials and key ingredients in their products.
The brand plan on having 100% of their products designed to have the smallest environmental impact possible and to have cut their carbon emissions in half by 2020, with the ambitious aim to become carbon-neutral by 2028. Guerlain was also the first perfume and Cosmetics House to be awarded the “Biodiversity and Climate Commitment” certification from Ecocert!
Curious to understand the life cycle of your Guerlain products? Click here and enter the name of the product to check its traceability. Disclaimer, the platform is only available in French.
Words: Lucy Wagstaffe
