At the forefront of sustainable business transformation, Alexandra Palt is widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential voices in sustainability. As the Executive Vice President of the L’Oréal Foundation and Chief Sustainability Officer of L’Oréal, she has led pioneering initiatives that have reshaped the company’s environmental and social impact strategies. Alexandra’s visionary leadership has been instrumental in driving ambitious programmes such as Sharing Beauty With All and L’Oréal for the Future, setting new benchmarks for corporate responsibility
In this exclusive interview, we speak with Alexandra about her remarkable journey at L’Oréal, the transformative impact of her sustainability initiatives, and her insights on the future of sustainable business.
Q: Could you tell us about your time at L’Oréal? What responsibilities did you have as CEO of the L’Oréal Foundation?
“I had two roles at L’Oréal. The first was leading the transition to a new business model alongside my colleagues and internal partners. This was our internal transformation. My second role was leading L’Oréal’s contribution to society externally.
Historically, the Anglo-Saxon world, particularly the United States, has engaged in philanthropy with significant financial contributions, but less focus on internal transformation. In contrast, European companies have tended to focus on internal transformation, leaving social challenges to the welfare state. Today, we need both approaches.
“We cannot continue business as usual. We need internal transformation, but we also have the capacity and resources – financial and otherwise – to contribute to solving the world’s most pressing challenges.
“As head of L’Oréal’s philanthropic efforts, I oversaw the Foundation’s work, and a charitable endowment fund dedicated to supporting women.”
Q: Back in 2012, you introduced the Sharing Beauty with All initiative. What was the driving force behind this approach?
“Sharing Beauty with All was the first generation of L’Oréal’s sustainability commitments. The CEO at that time, Jean-Paul Agon, had the ambition to create a transformative strategy for the company. He always said the two major challenges of this century would be digital and sustainability.
“Already in 2012, we were ahead of the time. We decided to build a strategy of ecological transition that tackled our entire value chain. At that time, we did not just look at the easy picks or say, ‘We’ll do this now and that later.’ No, we analysed our impact across the whole value chain and worked on each area to reduce our environmental footprint and improve our social footprint.
“This was our first-generation commitment. Through the achievements and maturity, we gained, we were able to launch the second wave of commitments, called L’Oréal for the Future. This allowed us to be very ambitious and mature in our sustainability policies.”
Q: Reflecting on your journey, what impact did the Sharing Beauty with All programme deliver?
“We achieved most of our targets. We even outperformed on some of them, such as our carbon footprint. We reduced the carbon footprint of our industrial activity by 80%, which was a huge achievement.
“Some other goals were more challenging, but environmental science is always evolving. At times, we realised we had to reformulate and redefine our targets to ensure we were tackling issues in the right way.
“Overall, the programme was very successful. In 2020, we announced the next generation of sustainability targets: our L’Oréal for the Future strategy. What makes this different is that we no longer ask, ‘What is our impact, and how much can we reduce it?’ Instead, we ask, ‘What does the world need from us?’
“We based our next strategy on scientific principles, specifically the planetary boundaries. We asked, ‘What do we need to do so that by 2030, L’Oréal operates within the planetary boundaries?’ – meaning we do not take more from the planet than it can sustain. This led to very ambitious targets, such as 100% recycled plastic and 95% of our ingredients being bio-based or from biotechnology. A complete transformation began at the organisation.”
Q: Looking ahead, what sustainable initiatives can we anticipate from companies like L’Oréal?
“I think every brand—not just L’Oréal brand—but the future of brands is, of course, it is. Sustainability is not going to be on the side; sustainability is going to be central to everything companies and brands will do.
“That means we feel – we change as a cosmetic company – it is no-waste conditions, it is solid shampoos, it is a lot of different things. We have to bring this innovation; we have to raise awareness why these innovations are good for sustainability. And then, as a last step, we need to do choice editing.
“We will have to stop bringing to the market products that are not having an improved environmental footprint.
“With that choice editing – that there is just a way that available, more sustainable products, more sustainable offers, is really the next level of maturity that companies will have to reach in the next years. If we choose to survive as a human species.”
This interview was conducted by Jack Hayes.
