{"id":25196,"date":"2025-09-16T05:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/25196\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T05:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T05:18:09","slug":"loreal-chief-corporate-responsibility-officer-shares-her-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/25196\/","title":{"rendered":"L\u2019Or\u00e9al Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer Shares Her Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPARIS \u2014\u00a0\u201cSustainability<\/a> is a team sport,\u201d said Ezgi Barcenas<\/a>, chief corporate responsibility officer at L\u2019Or\u00e9al<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe was speaking from her office in the Paris suburb of Clichy just days before Climate Week NYC begins, in her first interview about strategy since starting the job in March 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt L\u2019Or\u00e9al, she wears many hats: Barcenas is a member of L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s executive committee, chief executive officer of its foundation, plus steers the company\u2019s Fund for Nature Regeneration, Fund for Women and Climate Emergency Fund. But a guiding force for Cyprus-born Barcenas is the fact that she\u2019s a trained engineer.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat has really stayed with me over time,\u201d she said. \u201cHow I see the world, and how I think of sustainability<\/a> as a design problem in everything we do \u2014 in how we design our products, our processes, our markets \u2014 is something that has been very close to me in how I pursued my career ambitions and trying to make it a better world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeing at L\u2019Or\u00e9al also takes her back to her roots, as it\u2019s a 115-year-old-plus company born from science and innovation. (Her parents were both scientists.)<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI see that curiosity in all of our colleagues \u2014 90,000 colleagues around the world \u2014 the pioneering spirit to always ask the questions, to challenge ourselves, to raise the bar, to look for that continuous improvement,\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cIt\u2019s really fascinating to be part of such a culture and a group of colleagues that are also pushing themselves, pushing the boundaries, to continue to help serve the infinite diversity of the beauty aspirations and our diverse consumers out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al for the Future, the group\u2019s sustainability strategy she oversees, spans four main pillars: lead the climate transition, safeguard nature, drive circularity and support communities. The company has 15 goals within those.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor us, this is about: How do we build business and community resilience?\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cInnovation and partnerships are big enablers of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA new goal, for instance, is offering water-saving products and technologies to consumers in high water-stressed areas around the globe. L\u2019Or\u00e9al Water Saver, created with Gjosa, is a solution.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"L'Or\u00e9al<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al Water Saver<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re starting to think: How can we bring that to greater scale?\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cWhat does the shampoo of the future look like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this year, she also oversaw the Sustainable Innovation Accelerator\u2019s launch, with an endowment of 100 million euros over five years, to step up new breakthrough technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn everything I do, I look for solutions and I work with our teams to ask for the solutions,\u201d said Barcenas. She explained key is sending demand signals to the market, to be very transparent about L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s aspirations, goals, vision, as well as challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al, with its 4,000 scientists and researchers, has tremendous internal capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut at the same time, we also know that we have to turn to our ecosystem and find those partnerships outside that will help us tackle those technical challenges, break those ceilings and find new ways to bring new ingredients and new packaging solutions<\/a>, to think through greater transparency and traceability in our supply chain,\u201d said Barcenas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s where the Sustainable Innovation Accelerator helps.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe very clearly listed our challenges,\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s not just about sourcing the first set of cohorts and identifying the first set of start-ups and partners that are going to come in through the program, but actually to send those demand signals into the market and to seed what I would call \u2018innovation ecosystems\u2019 around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther large companies are facing similar sustainability challenges and seeking answers, so there is predictable growth in solutions to come.<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al partnered with Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, which helps to source the applications that remain open until Sept. 30, plus select and curate them.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re mobilizing a lot of different teams inside our company in different zones and markets, because a lot of the challenges could be very local and market-specific,\u201d said Barcenas, describing sustainability as a transversal function. \u201cWe want to tap into those innovation systems everywhere around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea is to pilot the solutions and ultimately bring them to scale. \u201cThis is one of the biggest challenges-slash-opportunities that is out there for sustainability right now,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al has already begun. Last September, the group announced it had participated in a 35-million-euro funding round for start-up French company Abolis Biotechnologies<\/a> in the quest to create purpose-made, sustainable ingredients produced at scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal was part of a three-way partnership. Evonik CVC, a global specialty manufacturer that\u2019s a long-standing partner of L\u2019Or\u00e9al, took a minority share in Abolis, too. L\u2019Or\u00e9al, Abolis and Evonik together aim to discover, develop and manufacture innovative, sustainable ingredients for beauty products and more.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Biotechnology<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBiotechnology is a sustainability solution at L\u2019Or\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Philippe Gotteland\/Courtesy of L\u2019Or\u00e9al<\/p>\n

\n\tScale, according to Barcenas, is \u201cthat transformative power that we can bring to the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOther upcoming goals include those in line with the 1.5-degree trajectory by 2030 and net-zero science-based target by 2050.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a lot that we have to do,\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cIf you look at our scope 1 and 2 [carbon] emissions, we\u2019ve done tremendous effort, but scope 3 still remains a big challenge, both upstream and downstream. So how we work with our supply chain partners is a big piece of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why in mid-November 2024, L\u2019Or\u00e9al and Chenavari Investment jointly launched Solstice, a 50-million-euro debt fund created to help suppliers accelerate their significant industrial projects\u2019 decarbonization.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs you\u2019re talking about decarbonization and mitigation, we should not forget the adaptation and resilience component, as well,\u201d said Barcenas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s where a separate fund \u2014 Fund for Nature Regeneration, announced in 2020 \u2014 is at play.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA lot of projects have been funded through the program, and what we\u2019re looking to learn is how does environmental performance combine with financial performance?\u201d she explained. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to learn what it means, and where we can support those projects around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tL\u2019Or\u00e9al keeps gleaning knowledge from its efforts linked to circularity, including improving recycled product contents and packaging solutions that are both sustainable and desirable.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company just completed the first year of its Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, or CSRD, for 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a fantastic step forward. We\u2019ve done many years of voluntary reporting or mandatory reporting, depending on different markets that we operate in,\u201d said Barcenas. \u201cBut for us, what\u2019s really fascinating about this development is not only looking at historical performance and disclosing how we\u2019ve done over the past year. But also putting in place the systems, the reporting processes, to continue to raise the auditability, quality, consistency of extra-financial data, and to bring them to the same levels of financial data, so that we can do better performance planning and monitoring looking forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBarcenas takes a 360-degree scope to navigate and understand a swiftly changing world today, while imaging the future of beauty and working toward it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat allows you to integrate sustainability across the business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tBarcenas and her team participate in different industry and professional groups, which is useful for benchmarking and can lead to non-linear thinking that helps connect the dots of sustainability solutions.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs a global company, we have the unique opportunity to learn from around the world,\u201d she said. \u201cIn sustainability, you learn to be resilient, to always look for what is next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat goes hand-in-hand with L\u2019Or\u00e9al\u2019s pioneering spirit, continued Barcenas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is that shared sense of commitment, and those core values are essential, they are the cornerstone of our legacy, but also our long-term success,\u201d she said. \u201cThose convictions drive us forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014\u00a0\u201cSustainability is a team sport,\u201d said Ezgi Barcenas, chief corporate responsibility officer at L\u2019Or\u00e9al. She was speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25527,111,139,69,3694,145,13534],"class_list":["post-25196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-lu2019oru00e9al","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sustainability","tag-technology","tag-wwdbeautyinc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}