Shiseido joins SPICE, the Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics, co-founded by L'Oréal and environmental consulting firm Quantis. SPICE aims to guide sustainable packaging policy, drive packaging innovation and improve communication in beauty & personal care industry.

Many actors in the cosmetics industry are increasing their level of commitment to work toward a sustainable future for beauty. These leaders are taking measures to progress on their path to sustainability as responsible companies, and to willingly respond to the increasing number of consumers, investors and other stakeholders who want to know more about the environmental performance of products on the market. Packaging is a visible reminder that products have an impact on the environment. These stakeholder groups expect transparency - facts and metrics - to understand if cosmetics brands are making commitments and how they plan on achieving these targets to reduce impacts on the environment.

Companies face considerable methodological issues when it comes to measuring the environmental footprint of their products. The results from product environmental footprints help companies to make eco-design choices and to robustly communicate with consumers. SPICE was created to address these issues and provide solutions to these challenges in a collective manner by many of its major actors.

SPICE is co-founded by L’Oréal and Quantis and now includes 11 current members including cosmetic companies Avon Products Inc., Chanel, Clarins Group, Coty Inc., L’Occitane en Provence, L’Oréal, LVMH, Shiseido, Sisley, as well as Cosmetic Valley (cosmetics production technopole, France) and FEBEA (Federation of Beauty Companies, France). SPICE remains open to additional—cosmetics products manufacturers as well as cosmetics packaging suppliers can join the initiative as corporate members.

Members will work together, guided by the sustainability experts at Quantis, to develop and publish business-oriented methodologies and data to support resilient decision making to improve the environmental performance of the entire packaging value chain. These developments will be the result of collective working sessions where members will share experience and knowledge for the benefit of the initiative and eventually to cosmetics packaging sustainability achievements on a grand scale.

More specifically, the work delivered from SPICE will help the cosmetics industry make significant progress in three key areas: 1) guiding sustainable packaging policy development based on robust and harmonized methodology, recognized by the sector; 2) driving packaging innovation based on objective eco-design criteria to progress towards more sustainable solutions; and 3) meeting consumers’ expectations by improving communication and providing more clarity on the environmental performance of products.

In the SPICE initiative, Shiseido will commit to build a new framework that will encourage eco-design packages and containers for the products as well as to develop the appropriate evaluation process of those environmentally friendly technology that has been provided by Japanese cosmetic companies including Shiseido. At the same time, by proactively utilizing this sustainability framework, we will provide our consumers with sustainable products with high resource efficiency and enhance the sustainability of the entire cosmetics industry.

To provide more clarity, understanding and transparency, SPICE will explore the following topics: recycled materials, bio-based plastics, finishing and decorating processes, tertiary packaging and distribution, reusable/rechargeable/refillable packaging and take-back programs, recycling disruptors, and end-of-life streams by country. Based on its expertise on product environmental performance and experience leading sector specific initiatives, Quantis will share its know-how and guide the discussions on the above topics to capture, consolidate and prioritize the members’ knowledge to enable them to define and deploy clear actions and developments.

To learn more about the SPICE initiative and how it will shape the future of cosmetics packaging, go to open-spice.com.