The 8 Conscious Care Criteria

Our care products are developed without compromising the safety of our consumers and always with guaranteed efficacy. 

Each year, we conduct on average more than 1,000 tests, carried out by more than 70 experts, to check the tolerance, efficacy and sensory appeal of over 100 new formulas. We are committed to providing our consumers with products that work and that are safe. 

Every day, around 20 toxicology experts and approximately 100 clinical assessment experts work to guarantee the safety of our dermo-cosmetic products for our consumers, as soon as they hit the market.

Thanks to a series of tests and our toxicological, clinical and cosmetovigilance expertise, we guarantee safe products for our consumers and our patients.

We work with our consumers to get feedback on the efficacy and appeal of our new products. If the efficacy results do not meet their expectations, product development is halted or taken in another direction. 

We are increasingly mindful of consumer opinions, which prompt us to design clinical studies for very specific target groups and carry out these studies in collaboration with consumers. 

For a product that targets atopic skin, we conduct clinical studies lasting 9 to 10 months that may include hundreds of volunteers.

European regulations are some of the strictest in the world. The European Commission is working with many scientists to identify if ingredients pose a health or environmental risk. This is immensely helpful for us and we complement it with our scientific and technical monitoring. As soon as we detect a red flag, we seek alternatives to guarantee products that are safe, effective and ever more environmentally friendly. Our choices are not based on fear, but on scientific knowledge.

This analysis helps us use only what is essential. We have thus reduced our ingredient catalog by 30%.

Thanks to our Conscious Care development charter, we go beyond simply removing controversial ingredients, an approach often referred to as Clean Beauty, by reducing our impact on the environment, while guaranteeing products that are just as effective and enjoyable to use. 

We select only the necessary ingredients for your skin, hair and oral hygiene, and in the right amount.  

Guided by the principle of “just what is necessary,” our Conscious Care formulas are designed and developed without unwanted ingredients.  

Our formulators meticulously select all the raw ingredients with care, to find the perfect balance between efficacy, safety and just the right amount of ingredients to be used.

EVERYTHING must be useful in the formula and enhance efficacy and safety. 

For every product, we are committed to integrating the concept of eco-design.

For manufacturing, we always look for the most efficient process in terms of manufacturing time and energy consumption.

Our formulators seek out the best solutions to minimize our impact on the environment. To give you an example, energy consumption is mainly related to the need to heat, sometimes up to 85°C, and cool the formula. For some products, when technical solutions exist, we go as far as manufacturing without heating. We subsequently save the energy needed to heat and cool the formula.

With regard to our production sites, with the main ones having ISO 14001 certification, we are committed to ensuring continuous improvement of our environmental management system. Using environmental assessments, we identified targets for continuous improvement of our energy consumption, water consumption and wastewater discharges.

Relationship between social, environmental and societal responsibilities

 

We believe in increasingly natural dermo-cosmetics. Assessing naturalness using an internationally recognized method (the ISO 16128 standard) allows us to prioritize renewable resources and more environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. This is not necessarily primarily for your safety, as you might think, but to reduce our impact on the planet.

The hunt for ever more natural products is a never-ending challenge. Preserving resources is important, so our goal is to guarantee that our raw materials are renewable or plentiful. Every day, more and more natural-origin ingredients join our portfolio, allowing us to create products that are more environmentally friendly, with the usual guarantee of efficacy . 

In 2023, our goal is to develop formulas with a natural-origin content above 85%. In 2025, we’ll raise the target to 90%.

We make our formulation choices by targeting the highest naturalness score for each of our formulas.  

 “A natural ingredient” is obtained by physical transformation or natural fermentation of a renewable or mineral resource. The substance occurs naturally in nature.

A “natural-origin ingredient” is obtained by putting one or more resources through green chemical and/or biotechnological processes that are as environmentally friendly as possible. 

Since 2008, the Pierre Fabre Group has been assessing the life cycle of its products. After 10 years of looking at the data, these assessments show that on average, “excluding the product use phase”, 40 to 50% of the environmental impact is generated by packaging.

One of our first emblematic actions was to include recycled plastic in Klorane shampoo bottles in 2011.

To assess the environmental profile of our packaging and implement the right drivers for environmental improvement without greenwashing, the Group created an in-house eco-design guide for cosmetic packaging and developed an EcoPack measurement tool. 

Since 2019, all cosmetic packaging items have been assessed using these tools, to provide an environmental score for each of them and implement the right drivers to improve the environmental profile of each packaging item for all new product launches.   The environmental impact from the packaging of every new product development is better than that of the previous product. The environmental impact of packaging is a criterion used in the choice of projects approved by Senior Management, alongside economic criteria.

 

The Packaging Department and the Green Mission Department work on the eco-design strategy for packaging, and it is approved by Senior Management and discussed annually.

The working areas are as follows:

Reduction in packaging weight,

Removal of packaging items,

Increase in the percentage of recycled materials,

Withdrawal of materials with a high carbon footprint,

Increase in the percentage of recyclable materials in the products sold,

Use of refill solutions and distribution of bulk items

 

Already, 100% of our packaging developments are eco-designed.

In 2025, 100% of our packaging will be produced from recycled and recyclable materials that are bio-sourced or compostable at home, 

100% of our plastic bottles will be made from recycled materials (80% on average)

100% of our packaging materials will be recyclable 

7% of our product catalog will be available in a reusable format (bulk, eco-refills) and the reduction of our environmental impact through packaging will help fight global warming

We manage and have always managed most of the production steps ourselves.

Our production is 96% French.

Every year, we assess all our suppliers, with special attention paid to the CSR criterion, which counts as much as the quality criterion. 

We introduce an action plan if we observe deviations from our expectations.

In 2020, 68% of our raw materials were manufactured in Europe, and 21% in France.

The Green Impact Index, a tool designed by Green Mission Pierre Fabre, rates the environmental and social impact of a cosmetic product based on 20 criteria such as biodegradability and naturalness of the formula, recyclability, organic farming, official certifications, and CSR commitments, etc. At Pierre Fabre, we believe that a product demonstrates the beginnings of an eco-socio design once it is rated B, although our ultimate target is always to reach grade A. 

Only A and B grade products are accepted for Conscious Care. 

The Green Impact Index is intended to be reliable, transparent and useful. It will help us to develop products that are more respectful of the Planet and will allow consumers to make a fully informed decision when choosing their products. 

The green impact index