March 9, 2022: -Sustainability is not enough for consumers to change their shopping habits, and products must “deliver for the consumer, first and foremost,” according to Adrien Koskas, global brand president at cosmetics label Garnier.

“We conduct a survey every year about the way people are committed to sustainability,” Adrien Koskas told CNBC.”

“We interviewed 30,000 people in nine different countries, and 83% of people want to be more sustainable every day, which is a big number, but only 5% are actively sustainable day today,” he added.

Garnier, part of the L’Oreal Group, was founded in France in 1904 by Alfred Amour Garnier and is now one of the biggest beauty brands worldwide. Koskas told CNBC that the brand understands that sustainability can be overwhelming for many people who don’t know where they can start to make a difference.

“This is why we are partnering with National Geographic, for instance, to create content to educate people, regarding 250 million people, on how to become more sustainable every day. How to recycle your beauty products, the way to use less water in a beauty routine, and we think it’s a great mission for us and helps the consumers in this green quest,” Koskas said.

The global brand recently launched the “first-ever mass-market no-rinse conditioner,” which, it says, saves 100 liters of water per tube compared to a traditional wash-out conditioner. It says that the product’s packaging contains 75% less plastic than conventional conditioners and is made in a carbon-neutral factory using a water loop to re-use any water needed in its production.

Garnier has set sustainability targets, with few set for as early as 2025, but Koskas remains confident they can be met. “We are confirming those objectives today. We have obvious KPIs that we track every other month with my team, and we regroup, we look at the conception, we have a recycled plastic as we want to have zero virgin plastic by 2025,” he said.

Garnier is keen to encourage others to join them on their sustainability mission through their “One Green Step” initiative across its social media.

″You know, we don’t look at sustainability and profit like that. For us, it’s what we have to do is the right thing to do, and we don’t count, you know, how much it costs. We look at what is the right thing to do, and how can we afford it.”

Garnier’s earnings outcomes are reported as part of L’Oreal’s more significant consumer products division, and a look back over the past few years shows a reasonably steady operating profit. As a percentage of sales, the unit experienced profits of 20% back in 2017, which increased to 20.4% in 2020 before falling to 20.2% in the previous year.