Introduction: French skincare, makeup and wellbeing house Clarins is accelerating its CSR goals under its ambitious ‘caring for people’ and ‘caring for planet’ pillars.
The company’s accelerated CSR approach is defined by its ‘making life more beautiful, passing on a more beautiful planet’ mantra, which embraces both environmental and ethical sustainability initiatives.
In 2020, Clarins achieved its goal of becoming a carbon neutral company. Following this, the company has now set a new target of receiving B Corp certification by 2023. B Corp is a US-based body that assesses companies’ positive societal and environmental impact.
Clarins also set the ambitious goal of transitioning to 100% recyclable packaging, 100% sustainably-sourced ingredients, 80% organic plant extracts and complete plastic neutrality by 2025. The company is seeking to optimise the traceability of its products and reinforce its fair trade programmes within the next five years. And there’s much more besides as Clarins Deputy CEO and Head of CSR Virginie Courtin-Clarins told Martin Moodie in an exclusive interview.
“At Clarins, we have always been very committed to CSR but we didn’t talk that much about all the great things that we do. So I took over the CSR department a year ago, with the goal of an acceleration of the strategy, and also making commitments for the next five years,” says Virginie Courtin-Clarins. In the intervening months, and despite the constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, she and the whole Clarins organisation have moved fast to underline those commitments.
“So we define at the corporate level, a new CSR mission, that we call Clarins – We Care. We went back to the roots of how my grandfather created the company [see video at foot of this page -Ed], and it’s based on two principles – listening to women and taking care of nature.
“So we have defined, a new virtuous circle for CSR. So you have the Clarins – We Care mission. Caring for people and caring for the planet. We wanted to represent the CSR strategy in a virtuous circle so everybody can remember it.”
“80% of our formulas are based on plants. The 20% remaining are amazing synthetic ingredients, but we use them because they are very active, they give efficacy but also sensuality.
“At our laboratory… we do what we call open research and open formula. So for example, if we take the launch of the Clarins Total Eye Lift or any new product, we attend the laboratory and we discuss with them how we would like the product to be very efficient in various ways. But we never tell them they have this [set] budget or that this product has to cost this.
“For us it’s really important that the laboratory can do the research and the innovation without any compromise of price. Because otherwise, we feel we won’t find the best solution. So it’s really a founding principle since day one.”
Three critical causes
Clarins supports three main causes, Courtin-Clarins explains – children (see full details below), health and biodiversity.
In terms of caring for the planet, the first core focus is environmental impact. “We want to preserve [the planet] and control our impact. 2020 is a big year for us – not only do we have this new strategy, but we also became carbon neutral as well. But I didn’t want to just compensate… I wanted also to commit to a reduction in our carbon footprint. So we have committed to minus 30% over the next five years, which is very challenging because at the same time we want to continue our [commercial] growth. But we will do that while reducing our carbon footprint. It’s an exciting challenge.
“In terms of our plants and ingredients, everything comes from nature. So it’s really at the core of our business and in the next five years, 80% of our plants will be organic. Today it is 40%, so we will double in the next five years.”
Field to jar
Clarins will also lean more heavily on plants grow on the magnificent Le Domaine Clarins estate in the Alps, acquired in 2016. “We are very proud as in four years we have managed to buy this place, grow these plants, analyse them in our our laboratory, and include them in our formulas. So we are going to increase the number of plants from Le Domaine Clarins in our formulas. This allows us to give more traceability to the customer because we are the one to grow the plants and then to put them directly in the jar. So it is a field to jar strategy.
“Of course, when you have the formulas with the plants and amazing ingredients that we have, we also want to have amazing packaging around it. And with a circular economy, so that we can produce without waste… instead producing to reuse and rebuild. So we have many, many commitments… for example, by 2025 we are going to use only recyclable materials.
“We are also going to become 100% biodegradable, focusing, of course, on the products that that go into water – so of course, we are talking about suncare and windsurf products.”
The company also intends to be plastic neutral by the same point. Clarins has also been trialling a system in two French boutiques allowing customers to refill their bottles in order to save waste, as well as having recycling points.
“Within this virtuous circle we have made many commitments,” Virginie Courtin-Clarins concludes. “We never forget our raison d’être, which is making life more beautiful but we have added to that making a more beautiful planet.”
Taking care of the planet
Clarins’ commitment to people and planet permeates the DNA of the house, writes Hannah Tan-Gillies.
President of the Supervisory Board Christian Courtin-Clarins says, “The thing that brings the men and women of the Clarins group together, besides a passion for all aspects of beauty, is the desire to be involved in something bigger than our work. It’s the conviction that together, we have to take care of the planet and improve the lives of current and future generations. Deep down, we’ve always had this desire to make life more beautiful and pass on a more beautiful planet.”
“‘Clarins makes life more beautiful’ has been our brand signature for many years,” adds Virginie Courtin-Clarins. “It’s fitting because it signifies that for Clarins, beauty is above all a source of generosity, well-being and self-confidence. That’s what we want to give to our clients and to the society we live in.
“We have added the idea of ‘passing on a more beautiful planet’. The meaning we wish to convey is that it’s not enough to simply correct or reduce our impact. We have to be more ambitious and proactive in order to hand future generations a more beautiful world. It’s a very noble goal, an ambition and ideal that pushes us to move forward, to progress, to do more and to enjoy doing so.”
Caring for People
Clarins is restructuring its human resources approach so that the ‘making life more beautiful’ promise becomes reality. The new policy highlights employee fulfillment, social advantages, training, mobility, parity and equity.
The company recently launched an internal survey called ‘Your Say’ which showed that 96% of Clarins employees support company values. By 2022, Clarins aims to help 100% of its employees complete at least one training course in diversity, equity and inclusion every two years.
The group is also enhancing dialogue across all stakeholders. To achieve this, it launched a ‘Cube’ programme which brings together different suppliers from various sectors. It also organises regular meetings with associations and managers to develop CRM initiatives.
In addition, Clarins is accelerating financial support for ethical and fair trade projects across its value chain. The company has partnered with 11 fair trade supply chain organisations in Madagascar, Burkina Faso and India to promote sustainable agriculture and initiate social programmes. In 2019, Clarins increased the amount of sustainable premiums paid to farmers by +47%.
Clarins is also supporting the Fondation Arthritis which supports victims of rheumatoid polyarthritis. The foundation was launched by Clarins Founder Jacques Courtin-Clarins in 1989 and has raised over €18 million (US$21.7 million) to help 614 funding initiatives.
Over the years, the group has raised €5 million to support 15 non-profit organisations in France, such as Etincelle, Look Good Feel Better, The Feed Programme and Futur en Herbe.
The company’s internal Le Prix Clarins pour l’Enfance initiative provides funding and practical support to children’s NGOs while the Le Mois des Câllins programme offers comfort to hospitalised children in Canada.
Clarins also holds an annual awards known as the ‘Dynamic Woman Prize’ which recognises inspirational women around the world who have dedicated their lives to helping children.
Caring for the planet
To fulfill its ‘passing on a more beautiful planet’ promise, the group has committed to reduce the overall environmental impact of its activities throughout its supply chain.
Thanks to its carbon-offsetting programme, Clarins has achieved carbon-neutrality in 2020. It has committed to reducing its global carbon footprint by an additional -30% by 2025.
The group has also launched a voluntary programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in, in addition to launching a new environmental scoring system for its retail network.
The company has also ramped up its responsible buying programme. Clarins is a founding member of the Responsible Beauty Initiative alongside L’Oréal Group, The Rocher Group and Coty. The initiative is the first beauty alliance of its kind to promote the sharing of suppliers’ CSR evaluations and best practices.
Clarins has been evaluating suppliers through EcoVadis since 2016 and evaluated more than 90% of them in 2019. The company has committed to evaluating 100% of suppliers and implementing a minimum score requirement by 2025.
All of Clarins’ products are currently made with 80% natural-origin ingredients. However, the group is constantly working to replace the synthetic components of its formulations with more natural-origin alternatives.
It has also pledged to produce completely biodegradable sun care and rinse-off formulas by 2025. This goal implies total control over the production of plant active ingredients and is supported by the opening of the Domaine Clarins estate in the Alps in 2016.
The Domaine Clarins is a 10-hectare open-air laboratory in the French Alps. It offers an exceptional source of raw organic plant materials that supports the company’s sustainable agriculture vertical sourcing processes.
The group is also implementing a number of circular economy practices such as shifting to renewable and recycled packaging materials, installing refill systems and using FSC paper from sustainably-managed forests. By 2025, 100% of Clarins’ skincare range will be recyclable and 50% designed using recyclable materials, said the company.
Clarins has committed to achieving plastic neutrality by 2025. In 2019, it recycled more than 670,000 plastic bottles used in gift pouches. In 2020, it saved 13 tonnes of plastic waste. Next year, Clarins is launching its first-ever solid shampoo without any packaging and plans to completely eliminate the use of polybags.
Clarins has also developed the ‘Clarins Pack Score’ and ‘Green Score’ to evaluate the environmental, social and health impact of its products. It plans to evaluate and score all products by 2025 and improve the scores of all formulas and packaging by +10% within the next five years.
Throughout the years, Clarins has worked consistently to protect natural ecosystems and environments. It supports more than 100 social/environmental projects each year. Its Alp Action project — now extended as the Asters project — supported five preservation programmes and protected 100 endangered species.
The company is also supporting a number of reforestation and agroecology initiatives, including a founding partnership with Pur Projet, Plastic Odyssey and its internal Seeds of Beauty programme. Since 2012, Clarins has planted 524,000 trees around the world.
Commenting on the group’s ambitious CSR mission, Clarins Group President Jonathan Zrihen says: “Commitments give us perspective. They set the objectives we want to achieve and guide the actions that we’ve already put in place or which we’re going to put into motion. They therefore demand outcomes, not only for our CSR, but for our company’s entire strategy.
“This is a very important point,” Zrihen adds. “Many of our CSR commitments mean adjusting our ways of making and marketing our products. CSR doesn’t run parallel to our activity but lives symbiotically with it. And we implement it with the same high-quality standards that we require for the effectiveness, safety and sensoriality of our products.”
