L'Oreal's green future

Richard Quest talk to L'Oreal CEO Jean-Paul Agon about his company's sustainability strategy.”

And this is where the magic takes place. These are the magicians making sure it happens. L'Oreal wants to make mother nature remain beautiful, the world's biggest beauty company has announced a sustainability strategy that includes reducing its carbon footprint by 60% through to the year 2020. Earlier, I spoke to L'Oreal chief executive Jean-Paul Agon who was in Paris and I asked him when it comes to the strategies, you have to do more than just lip service.

During the past few years, we redefined a lot by the L'Oreal company. We redefined the mission which is to offer beauty to all women and men around the planet. We redefined our strategies which we call the universalization. We redefined the objective which is to win over one billion new consumers.And now we think it's the time also to redefine our commitment in terms of sustainability and that's why we made this announcement today. A great commitment in terms of sustainability until 2020.

If it hits the bottom line. Now I know there is an arguement that says if you do sustainability right, it actually increases profit ability over the long run.But in the short run, are you prepared for an increasing costs if that comes along?

If comes along,yes, but as you just said,very truely, we really believe that it is a visual cycle. Becuase in effect, sustainability improves your business. Because, you know, what we have to understand is that consumers and stake holders all over the world are now expecting companies to behave sustainably. So for us, it is the only way to go.

We must just finally and very briefly talk about economics and what you are seeing in the business. Europe is finally out of recession and growing again. The U.S. has its problems and as you look at your business, how are going to manage these very challenging economic moments?

In fact for us, the beauty market is still growing. Of course, the growth is different depending on the regions of the world, there is the market that is alomst flat in the western Europe.But L'Oreal is growing thanks to market share gains. The market is slightly growing, you know, two,three peicent in the U.S. and north America in general and we are growing faster than that. Thanks again to market share gains and the market is still very dynamic in many places in the world, you know in China,in India, in Brazil.