The Sustainable Land Use and the Forest policies reinforce L'Oréal's objectives in terms of:
- Preventing any further loss of biodiversity: the Group sets strict no-deforestation and no-conversion standards for raw materials at risk. L’Oréal’s Forest Policy, updated in April 2025, reaffirms the Group’s vision regarding forest stewardship and restoration. It also aims to prevent deforestation and ecosystem conversion, and any violation of human rights along its supply chains of raw materials subject to deforestation risk. This policy is consistent with L’Oréal’s Sustainable Land Use Policy, Human Rights policy, Code of Ethics and Sustainable Purchasing Policy (see section 4.9.2.2). To prevent any further loss of biodiversity, the Group conducts traceability campaigns. Source traceability must comply with the policy for raw materials at risk (in particular palm and soy derivatives for cosmetic ingredients, and wood derivatives for packaging). The aim is to ensure a 100%-sustainable and traceable supply of forestry raw materials, while ensuring that the rights of workers and communities are respected. L'Oréal will also ensure that its supplies comply with the European Union Deforestation Regulation, when it enters into force;
- Reducing biodiversity loss: the Group focuses on the selection of biobased ingredients with a low environmental impact. Through its Green Sciences programme (see section 4.5.3.1.2), the Group explores biotechnologies and the circular economy as levers for reducing the environmental footprint of ingredients and encouraging sustainable and regenerative farming practices throughout the supply chain. The Group focuses on regenerative farming to preserve biodiversity and water resources, sequester atmospheric carbon and restore soil quality;
- Ecosystem restoration and regeneration: the Group applies a two-pronged approach to priority ecosystems, aimed at regenerating productive land and catchment basins and conserving natural ecosystems in its value chain. Fundamental principles also include, respect for threatened and endangered species (in line with CITES and IUCN) and compliance with the Nagoya Protocol. Nature-based solutions, such as regenerative farming, forest conservation, reforestation, wetland restoration and agroforestry, are used to address interconnected challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water stress. The Group looks to implement actions to regenerate, restore and conserve productive and non-productive land over an area exceeding its land footprint by 2030. To do so, the Group records the surface area in hectares where active regenerative farming practices are implemented, as well as the surface area resulting from restoration or conservation projects. The surface area allocated is based on the share of project funding provided by the partners. Through the L'Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration created in 2020 and managed by Mirova, L'Oréal has invested alongside other partners in the Mindanao Forests for People and Sustainable Livelihoods project. The goal of this project is to conserve 460,000 hectares of forest in partnership with the indigenous populations of the Mindanao region, the island from which the Group sources its coconut-derived ingredients;
- Human rights of workers in the value chain and affected communities: the policies incorporate legal requirements for production and processing, including compliance with the human rights provisions included in the European Union Regulation on deforestation and the regulations arising from the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefits Sharing. These regulations assert the rights of workers, farmers and smallholders, in accordance with the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Another essential pillar is the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
To facilitate stakeholder feedback and concerns about the impact of L’Oréal’s activities on shared resources and ecosystems, L’Oréal provides access to systems such as Speak Up and the environmental and social grievance management system in the palm and wood derivatives supply chains (see section 4.9.3).
4.5.3 Action plans in place
L'Oréal is taking action to reduce its impact on biodiversity and restore ecosystems back to health. This section details the initiatives launched under this topic, in particular measuring the biodiversity footprint, sustainable sourcing practices and the fight against deforestation.
4.5.3.1 Reducing the impact on ecosystems
4.5.3.1.1 Measuring the footprint related to land cover
Given its role in pollination, air and water purification and soil fertility, to take but a few examples, biodiversity is vital for humanity. The degradation of its ecosystems weakens L'Oréal's own resilience to climate change. L’Oréal is mobilised in support of regenerating, by 2030, more land than the Group’s footprint to enhance the health and resilience of priority ecosystems. As part of this, the Group quantifies its annual land-cover footprint (i.e., the amount of land used to produce ingredients and packaging items made from biobased raw materials).
4.5.3.1.2 Avoid biodiversity loss with a "zero deforestation" approach
To combat deforestation, L'Oréal is seeking to implement an ambitious Forest Policy:
- certification: L’Oréal strives to ensure that its sourcing of raw materials subject to deforestation risk is certified by third-party organisations, such as RSPO or FSC, that include robust environmental and social requirements;
- Transparency: L'Oréal remains vigilant about the origin of its raw materials subject to deforestation risk. It investigates the transparency of its upstream value chains in order to verify that these materials are not sourced from deforested areas;
- risk management: an in-depth analysis is conducted of the risks associated with supply areas, taking into account reports from the media, NGOs and other stakeholders, a satellite surveillance of palm supply areas linked to the Group, and a mechanism for identifying and managing grievances;
- supplier engagement: L’Oréal works with its suppliers directly and throughout the chain to raise awareness of their duty of care, promote sustainable sourcing practices and assess performance against sustainable development criteria;
- specific action plans, particularly for sensitive sectors such as palm, soya and wood.
