The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) today released its Fiscal Year 2024 Social Impact and Sustainability (SI&S Report), a key document that showcases the company’s work toward achieving its social impact and sustainability commitments.
The report highlights ELC’s efforts in its focus areas including climate and energy, sustainable packaging, responsible sourcing, ingredient transparency, employee experience and equity, well-being and safety, and impactful social investments.
In addition, ELC published its 2024 Progress Update to its Climate Transition Plan, highlighting its efforts to address climate change. This update outlines ELC’s latest strategic actions, challenges and progress aimed at reducing total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its value chain.
“In fiscal 2024, we achieved several sustainability goals ahead of schedule, including surpassing our water withdrawal targets, publishing our new corporate ingredient glossary and reaching our palm oil objectives before our 2025 deadline,” said The Estée Lauder Companies Chief Sustainability Officer Nancy Mahon.
President and Chief Executive Officer Fabrizio Freda said: “Our environmental and social efforts are integral—enabling innovation, value creation and operational efficiency, while engaging with current and future talent.
“In the past year, we continued our efforts, taking important steps to align our practices with our goals and seek opportunities to further embed these principles into how we do business.”
Executive Chairman William P. Lauder added: “As we endeavour to build a stronger and more agile company, we remain guided by the values that have shaped us over the years—generosity of spirit, innovation, willingness to challenge the status quo, and commitment to acting responsibly.”
“Our social impact and sustainability efforts reflect these values and are made possible by the creativity and resilience of our talented teams around the world.”
Key highlights from the FY24 SI&S Report include:
Products and ingredients
- Achieved 2025 ingredient transparency goal ahead of schedule by publishing a new corporate ingredient glossary. The glossary features more than 100 key ingredients, providing consumers with greater transparency into the products they choose.
- Achieved 2025 palm oil sustainability goal ahead of schedule by ensuring 95% of palm-based ingredients are certified sustainable by RSPO physical supply chains.
- Maintained packaging sustainability efforts, with 71% of packaging in fiscal year 2024 being recyclable, refillable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable, and moved closer to the 2025 target of 75-100%.
Business operations
- Achieved 2025 water withdrawal goal ahead of schedule by reaching a 23% reduction in water withdrawal from direct manufacturing sites, from the fiscal 2019 baseline.
- Diverted 99.8% of industrial waste from landfills across global operations.
- Integrated new sustainability practices across ELC operations, including completing new LEED-certified locations, adding new solar installations in Belgium and Japan, accelerating efforts to transition 100% of the global corporate fleet to electric by 2030, and expanding ELC’s Responsible Store Design programme around the world.
People and advancing equity
- Maintained and expanded pay equity across ELC employees globally.
- Exceeded the global gender average of STEM workers; 70% of scientists and tech professionals across ELC are women, and women lead all R&D and Innovation Centers.
- Progressed toward ELC’s 2025 goal of mobilising employees to drive a total of US$25 million to non-profits of their choice. Fiscal 2024 brought the total to US$24.2 million donated since 2015.
- Supported more than 60 organizations worldwide through ELC’s Breast Cancer Campaign, addressing the needs of local communities and advancing the mission to help create a breast cancer-free world.
- Expanded the WRITING CHANGE initiative, established in partnership with poet, activist and Estée Lauder Global Changemaker Amanda Gorman. Met the initial funding goal to support a total of ten non-profit organisations across the USA that enable access to literacy and education resources, advocate for representation in literature, and encourage artistic expression. ✈
