Packaging

Packaging is critical for protecting and transporting our product, as well as supporting our customer’s shopping experience. We recognize, however, that packaging is a significant contributor to our waste generation and emissions.

With a comprehensive view of our impact levers, we aligned on principles to guide our packaging sustainability strategy and established a target to hold ourselves accountable and track progress. Our first priority is to eliminate unnecessary packaging. For essential packaging, we focus on five principles to improve our environmental impact: weight-optimized, mono-material, fully recyclable, reusable and free of virgin content. By 2030, our goal is for 75% or more of packaging across all packaging categories to be designed with at least one eco-design principle and use at least 50% PCR.

We also joined the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, an industry group to continue learning from others, share our learnings and collaborate with peers to drive action.

Packaging Reduction and Optimization 

We are continually researching and testing new packaging options that reduce the amount of packaging components and materials required to produce, ship, protect and dispense our product. Here are examples of our process to date: 

  • Implemented rolling techniques for bulky products at the vendor to reduce the amount of corrugate needed and improved transportation efficiency by allowing for more products to be shipped in the same space.
  • Reduced the amount and bulk of packaging used to house and ship e-commerce orders, helping to eliminate unnecessary components while maintaining high quality for transportation. 
  • Increased manufacturing efficiency, and in turn, reduced the number of components that are produced as scrap.
  • Reduced weight of primary beauty packaging.

Design for Recovery and Recyclability

We are committed to evaluating packaging options with their end-of-life destination in mind, to reduce our contribution to packaging waste, where possible. In partnership with our suppliers, we continue to explore packaging options that are designed to be recycled
or reused. Here is an update on our work underway:

 

What we’re doing

Why

Decreasing virgin content and increasing recycled content

This supports the circular economy, keeping materials in use for longer. When recycled materials are not available due to supply chain or product durability issues, we prioritize using certified alternative materials (i.e., Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper).

Designing mono-material packaging

Packaging composed of at least 90% of the same material can better enable recycling options at end-of-life.

Designing our packaging to be recyclable

Utilizing materials that are compatible with current recycling systems globally, as well as designing packaging to be separable at its end-of-life, are the first steps to contributing to a circular economy.

Optimizing the weight of our packaging

Eliminating unnecessary packaging components, consolidating packaging items where possible and light-weighting essential packaging products are key to minimizing the overall environmental impact of our packaging.

Designing our packaging to be reusable

Reuse allows packaging to stay in use longer and  reduces our packaging needs.