As much as I love makeup and skincare products, it’s no secret that beauty retail somehow has a negative environmental impact. Just imagine how many bottles and plastic wrappers end up in landfills after we continue splurging on multiple products that only expire after 2-3 years! Small entrepreneurs are already doing their part by ditching non-biodegradable products, but this is the first time that I’ve encountered a big beauty brand that is making a change towards more sustainable alternatives for the future.

The L’Oreal Group recently introduced its “Green Beauty” intiative in the Philippines, spearheaded by Garnier. This refers to an end-to-end approach to sustainability in beauty retail aimed at reducing its environmental impact at every stage of the value chain – from education, purchasing, and recycling. Through Green Beauty, Garnier ensures that products now contain more than 90% natural origin ingredients, certified organic product ranges, and vegan formulas. This is actually just one of the many sustainability commitments that they have for 2030! Imagine what another decade can do to advance further.

GREEN PARCEL

Since majority of consumers now are also purchasing necessities through e-commerce sites that send out products in plastic parcels, Garnier partnered with Shopee, Sain Bags, and Econest to produce sustainable packagins made out of honeycomb, cassava starch, and other biodegradable materials. Even though they’re biodegradable, the packaging neither feels flimsy nor does it easily get torn apart. Here’s a look at the newest Green Parcel that you can look forward to receive soon:

The cassava bags used as packaging easily gets dissolved when it’s time for disposal. These packaging created in. partnership with SainBags are made from cassava starch and other materials from renewable resources, making it biodegradable and compostable, leaving no toxic residues, no damage to oceans and waterways, and no threat to animals and plants. Users can either:

1. Cut it into small pieces and melt in hot water.
2. Mix in compost as nitrogen component for house plants.
3. Chuck it in the bin and wait it to decompose in 105 days – which isn’t really long when compared to the life of plastic.

The Geami honeycomb protective packaging from EcoNest, on the other hand, is made out of 3D die cut paper that is FSC-certified virgin kraft paper with an interleaf tissue that provides surface protection. Since it’s a type of paper, it only takes 2-6 weeks for the honeycomb material to biodegrade or be recycled into something else.

Expect to receive these on your next purchase from the official Garnier Shopee store by the end of the year.

GREEN SPACES

To further instill recycling habits in consumers, Garnier is also working with Mercury Drug and Plastic Flamingo for a sachet collection drive, where consumers are encouraged to return used sachets by dropping them in Garnier stations found at Mercury Drug branches within Metro Manila. These sachets will then be recycled to build emergency houses in partnership with Plastic Flamingo!

Aside from this, the brand has also taken a sustainable approach in producing merchandising materials by using recycled and recyclable materials for their in-store modules and product hangers. They walk the talk, indeed!

GREEN EDUCATION

Garnier also has a partnership with Edukasyon PH, the largest EdTech platform for the Filipino youth, in developing modules focused on the education of sustainability, co-created for the Green Education Program. We can’t make people recycle if they don’t understand why they need to do it, of course! Better understanding leads to better choices.

So let’s help share the word about green beauty with hopes that more big brands will follow suit. L’Oreal Philippines and Garnier cannot do it on their own. If they can do this, why can’t other big brands start shifting to more sustainable options, too? If they can do this, what other reason do WE -as consumers- have to skip recycling what we buy, too? Let’s aim for a more sustainable future together.

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