CASE STUDY

L’Oréal Prioritizes Internal Sustainability with Re:Dish to Align with Broader Company Vision

Introduction

L’Oréal’s commitment to sustainability is exemplified by its L’Oréal for the Future initiative, which aims for carbon neutrality at all sites by 2025 and 100% refillable, recyclable, or compostable product packaging by 2030. To align its internal sustainability practices with these public-facing commitments, L’Oréal partnered with Re:Dish to launch its Reusable Dishware Program at its NYC headquarters.

Challenge

With 14,000 employees across 10 floors at L’Oréal’s Hudson Yards location, effectively managing waste was essential. An internal waste audit identified a very low recycling rate, with most waste coming from single-use items in the cafe and pantries. This situation underscored the need for a solution that not only reduced waste but also aligned with L’Oréal’s broader sustainability commitments in a practical, everyday context.

Solution

L’Oréal collaborated with Re:Dish, replacing single-use items with reusable alternatives in the main cafe and pantries on each floor. Access to DishTrack, Re:Dish’s impact and inventory dashboard, was a key reason for selecting Re:Dish because it was key for L’Oréal to be able to measure progress towards waste diversion, emissions reduction and water savings goals in real-time.

Separately, L’Oréal also removed individual desk trash bins to consolidate waste stations and heighten waste awareness among employees.

Results

Employees were not happy initially about losing their trash cans. However, having disrupted daily waste management routines at both meals and desks proved to be a powerful tool in changing behavior. Within three weeks, the new system - at desks and in the cafeteria – became second nature. Staff appreciated seeing their impact reported in company newsletters and signage.

The program’s success at Hudson Yards led to its expansion to another office within six months. L’Oréal and Re:Dish are now in discussions about ways to expand beyond food and beverage packaging.

L’Oréal has already diverted almost half a million single-use items from landfill with The Reusable Dishware Program and made the following impact:

25,000 lbs of waste diverted
62,000 kg of CO2e not emitted
55,000 gallons of water saved

Watch

Caroline Vanderlip of Re:Dish, Elizabeth Balkan of reLoop, Jennie Romer of the EPA, and Nicole Cerroni from L'Oréal discuss what they see as the single most promising way to advance reuseon Upstream’s Panel: The “secret sauce” to scaling circular systems.

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