L’Oreal

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during stakeholder engagement, as well as how they are integrated into its sustainability strategy.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts, reports progress against all the targets it has set, and provides evidence of linking senior executives’ remuneration policies to the company’s sustainability targets and objectives.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company commits to achieving no conversion or degradation of high conservation value (HCV) areas, high carbon stock (HCS) forests, intact forest landscapes (IFL), and other forest-related natural ecosystems in 100% of the sourcing for its overall portfolio. The company discloses activities to ensure conversion-free supply chains for palm oil and soybean extract. The company is committed to restoring ecosystems. The company has a time-bound target for its ecosystem restoration activities.

GHG emissions
The company reduces its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions. The company has time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, which are aligned with the 1.5-degree trajectory.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices.

Solid and air pollution
The company discloses quantitative data with regards to plastic use reduction and use of sustainable packaging. The company discloses its target to have 100% plastic packaging that will be refillable, reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025 and reports progress against it. The company reports on the proportion of its recycled plastic.

Water
The company reports the proportion of water withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company engages with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal.
The company discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality. The company regularly reports on water pollution metrics. The company has a commitment to respect the right to water.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company requires its business relationships to identify and recognise affected Indigenous Peoples and to obtain their free, prior and informed consent regarding whether and how to carry out projects.
The company requires its business relationships to have a process to identify legitimate tenure rights holders paying particular attention to vulnerable or marginalised tenure rights holders, and to negotiate with them to provide adequate compensation.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The company discloses its expectations from suppliers to protect human, land and environmental rights defenders from violence, intimidation and criminalisation.

Act ethically
The company adheres to a zero-tolerance policy on corruption, as highlighted in its publicly available policy statement and reinforced through its commitment to the United Nations Global Compact and Convention Against Corruption. It conducts corruption risk assessments, producing 93 maps in 75 countries, with procedures to ensure verifications during acquisition and third-party management. Anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses are included in its contracts with business partners. The company also maintains a publicly accessible website for anonymous complaints, aligning with its robust Speak Up policy. Additionally, it has established a lobbying and political engagement policy, ensuring that its activities are transparent and do not include political contributions.

Provide and promote decent work
The company commits to respecting worker health and safety, with policies ensuring a safe, secure, and healthy work environment across global facilities, complemented by rigorous third-party audits including EcoVadis assessments. It mandates similar standards for business relationships, requiring supplier adherence to health and safety norms. The company discloses robust audit mechanisms to monitor supplier compliance, performing various audits based on a detailed risk matrix. It guarantees living wages for all its employees by 2025 and aims for its strategic suppliers’ employees to receive a living wage by 2030. It promotes gender equality as a signatory of the WEPs since 2013, with 43.75% female representation on its board.

Respect human rights
The company has systematised the assessment of ethical and human rights risks across its operations, utilising a specialised tool for local risk assessment managed by country managers. They identified the potential major human rights risks globally and in 27 specific markets, prioritising risks based on severity, scale, and remediability. This process is enhanced through partnerships with NGOs and institutions like the Danish Institute for Human Rights, ensuring independent analysis and robust stakeholder engagement. The identified key risks include child labour, forced labour, discrimination, and the lack of a decent living wage within their supply chain. They actively integrate these findings into their operations, aiming for continuous improvement and compliance through their Ethics and Human Rights programs and annual reporting systems.

Lobbying
The company does not report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on nature-related issues, nor whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose its process for engaging with stakeholder groups beyond its materiality assessment.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
While the company has set some targets, it does not disclose group-wide targets on all key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. The company does not disclose whether its highest governance body has expertise regarding nature-related topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company does not have time-bound targets to achieve conversion-free supply chains.

GHG emissions
The company has an opportunity to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and report progress against its scope 3 targets.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company discloses that it evaluates the importance of biodiversity in its production area. However, there is no evidence found that the company discloses the outcomes of this assessment process, or that it has assessed the impact of its suppliers on nature. The company does not disclose any assessment of its dependencies on nature within its own operations or in its upstream business relationships.

Invasive species
The company has not identified any activities that could lead to the introduction of invasive alien species in its own operations.

Key areas and species
The company does not disclose key species or areas important for biodiversity affected by its operations or suppliers. It has an opportunity to increase its transparency.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
No evidence was found regarding the company’s efforts to work towards a circular economy or which organisms it exploits. The company has an opportunity to develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

Solid and air pollution
The company is not reducing the production of hazardous substances. The company does not commit to avoid developing or marketing new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties. The company is not reducing the production of hazardous waste. The company does not report on the amount of plastic waste generated and proportions directed from or to disposal. It also does not report metrics on air pollutants, nor set time-bound targets to reduce them.

Water
The company reports an increase in water use. While the company has a target to reduce water withdrawal, the target is intensity based and does not necessarily result in an absolute reduction of water withdrawal. The company does not report a qualitative decrease in water pollution. While the company reports a water pollutant target, it is also intensity based. The company does not disclose its processes for implementing preventive and corrective action plans for identified specific risks to the right to water and sanitation in its own operations.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company does not show if it is committed to respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights or land rights of local communities.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
No evidence found that the company tracks its actual or potential negative impacts on the health of local communities, or that it has a commitment to respect the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Act ethically
The company communicates its responsible lobbying commitments to intermediaries but lacks clarity on whether it requires third-party lobbyists to adhere to its lobbying and political engagement policy. Additionally, there is no disclosure of total lobbying expenditures. The company has an opportunity to clarify the compliance requirements for third-party lobbyists and to enhance transparency by disclosing all its lobbying expenditures.

Provide and promote decent work
The company offers health and safety data but lacks detailed disclosures on work-related fatalities and high-consequence injuries. It collaborates with the Fair Wage Network for a living wage strategy but does not describe specific living wage determinations. It aims to measure gender pay equality globally but has not set comprehensive targets for gender equality and empowerment. The company has an opportunity to enhance reporting on specific types of work-related injuries, provide clearer strategies for ensuring living wages, and define and disclose measurable goals for achieving gender equality across its operations.

Respect human rights
The company provides mechanisms for grievance reporting and has policies for remedial actions concerning child labor in supplier operations, and ensures living wages based on best practices. However, the company has an opportunity to develop and disclose a comprehensive system to prevent, mitigate, or remediate human rights risks across its operations and supply chain, detailing processes and expected outcomes in a transparent manner.