Carbon-neutral beauty? As leading beauty brands make efforts to address consumer concerns about the environment, skincare gets an eco upgrade.
La Beauté Louis Vuitton marks the esteemed fashion house’s inaugural venture into high-luxury cosmetics, arriving this month. Crafted under the creative vision of legendary makeup artist Dame Pat McGrath, the collection unveils 55 lipstick shades, ten lip balms, and eight eyeshadow palettes. Each product is conceived as a luxurious “object of desire,” blending performance with design rooted in the brand’s rich heritage of artistry and travel-inspired craftsmanship.
The lipsticks are offered in both satin and matte finishes, totaling 27 creamy satin and 28 velvety matte shades, enriched with natural flower waxes, shea butter, and hyaluronic acid. The lip balms deliver sheer, luminous coverage intended to nourish and revitalize lips across ten delicate hues. Eyeshadow palettes pair three everyday tones with one bold shade, inviting creativity through versatile, luxurious textures.
Sustainability is woven deeply into the collection’s design language. Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic created refillable packaging that transforms each case into a keepsake — lipsticks and balms feature engraved shade names and a “peek‑a‑boo” window so color is always visible. The eyeshadow palettes also embrace refillability. Materials such as aluminum and brass replace plastic, and artistic monogram motifs nod to Vuitton’s iconic travel trunks.
Louis Vuitton may be late to the party, but the clean beauty revolution is swiftly transforming the industry — and consumers are largely to thank. More than half of shoppers now prioritize sustainability when shopping for cosmetics.
As a result, beauty products now feature terms like “clean,” “organic,” and “natural.” But the green beauty movement is a vast sea of offerings, including carbon-neutral beauty, which is out to tackle one of the industry’s ugliest secrets: carbon waste.
The ugly side of the beauty industry
The beauty industry is booming. In 2021, the sector surpassed $511 billion globally — and it’s only getting bigger. By 2027, the cosmetics market is expected to be worth more than $784 billion, according to e-commerce growth agency Common Thread Collective. And while your fave shade of lipstick may look good on you — it might not be good for the planet.
Similar to other industries, the beauty sector contributes to the escalating carbon emissions making their way into the atmosphere each year. Responsible for destroying the ozone layer and fueling global warming, carbon dioxide is one of the most common — and dangerous — forms of air pollution.
Take the beauty industry’s use of plastic packaging — which isn’t naturally biodegradable — for example. According to recycling company TerraCycle, the personal care and beauty industry produces 120 billion units of packaging each year around the world. If companies were to switch to refillable containers, the sector could cut its carbon emissions by 70 percent, reports the LCA Centre, a group that studies the environmental impact of packaging.
In addition to plastic use, the beauty industry relies on mined raw minerals and toxic chemicals, not to mention the transportation of products to store shelves — all of which have a large carbon footprint.
Enter carbon-neutral beauty. Unlike their unsustainable counterparts, carbon-neutral cosmetics products are made in a way that minimizes and offsets the number of carbon emissions emitted throughout the entirety of their life cycle, from their production down to their delivery. But is the concept truly green or just a greenwashing marketing ploy?
The rise of carbon-neutral beauty
In its simplest form, the concept of carbon neutrality aims to ensure that the amount of carbon dioxide produced is equal to or less than the amount that’s being captured from the environment.
Ensuring net-zero carbon dioxide emissions is crucial and can be implemented by beauty brands, other businesses, and individuals. Many sustainable skincare brands exemplify this by offering vegan, cruelty-free, and carbon-neutral products packaged in biodegradable capsules and compostable materials.
To achieve true carbon neutrality, though, a brand must first assess and calculate its carbon footprint across the supply chain. Following this, they can plan to neutralize these emissions by using biodegradable packaging and non-toxic ingredients and taking steps to reduce their operational footprints by using renewable energy, for example. Any emissions that cannot be reduced are offset through the purchase of carbon credits. These credits are instruments bought to counterbalance emissions, with their cost reflecting the expense of removing an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide from the environment.
Companies can then use the money obtained from carbon credits to fund various carbon-offset programs like tree planting programs, which help to balance out a company’s overall carbon footprint.
Defining sustainable beauty
While there’s no official certification for “sustainability,” it has come to mean a few things to many industries. In short, it’s not taking more than you’re giving back. It means avoiding the depletion of natural resources, but most often it means keeping your carbon output in check by taking steps to sequester carbon, either by offsets or reducing your overall energy use.
When it comes to beauty, sustainability can be addressed in all areas, from the ingredients themselves, grown organically or without pesticides, for example. It can also mean how the product is formulated, how it’s packaged, and how it’s shipped.
It’s also important to remember that just because one area of a business is sustainable, it doesn’t mean everything it offers is. For example, what is sustainability in ingredients doing for the planet if that product is packaged in plastic?
Generally, the more a brand can tout certifications and is transparent about its entire value chain, the more sustainable it likely is.
Brands embracing carbon-neutral beauty
Founded in 2019, Climate Neutral, an organization that works to eliminate carbon emissions, has certified more than 300 brands for going net zero. In total, the companies have helped to offset more than one million tonnes of carbon.
In 2020, Estée Lauder revealed it had achieved net zero emissions by switching to 100 percent renewable energy. Other luxury beauty brands like L’Oréal and Lancôme are working toward similar goals. Saie recently became the first beauty label to take the Climate Pledge.
In March 2021, Ethique — a vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand that makes plastic-free shampoo, conditioner, and face bars — became carbon-negative, offsetting 120 percent of its emissions.
Other brands that have gone carbon neutral include vegan and cruelty-free brands Tropic Skincare and Highr Collective. The former is able to double offset all of its carbon emissions by partnering with environmental initiatives like replanting portions of the Amazon rainforest. The latter — which carries the world’s first carbon-neutral lipstick, according to the company — relies on clean energy and carbon offset programs. To date, the company has negated 43.1 metric tons of emissions — which equates to taking 9.2 cars off of roads for the entirety of a year.
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