By John Chave

One of the key values underscored by COP27 and integral to reaching its goals in Egypt was collaboration. This reflects the global consensus that addressing the climate crisis can’t be done by any one individual, company or country. We all have environmental responsibilities that we must live up to. And it takes each of us doing our part, individually and together, to decrease our environmental impacts and limit global warming to 1.5 C.

This is of course also true for the cosmetics and personal care industry, as consumer products have environmental impacts at all stages of their life cycle. At Cosmetics Europe, we recognise our industry’s responsibility to ensure the production and consumption of cosmetics goods is done in an environmentally viable way, and we share the COP27 emphasis on inclusive and active participation. It is in this spirit that we developed Commit for Our Planet, an unprecedented cosmetics industry-wide initiative to reduce the sector’s environmental footprint in Europe and across the value chain.

Through Commit for Our Planet, we are inviting all industry actors from SMEs to larger corporations, from those with established sustainability strategies to those just at the beginning of their sustainability journeys, to join us in raising the bar across the industry. Critical for collaboration with the initiative is an inclusive environment. For this reason, we established a flexible framework for commitments that is adaptable to each company’s needs, resources and operating environments. This ensures each company can contribute at its own pace. We also identified three themes – reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving packaging and acting for nature – that are essential to our sector and sit at the centre of our operations and their related impacts. In this way, every company has the opportunity to contribute and deliver impactful and measurable results for the planet.

Although many companies are already making significant progress on their own, it’s only through industry-wide collaboration that we can stimulate the green transition and create a more sustainable future for all.