Procter & Gamble and global nongovernment organizations (NGOs) collaborated in a virtual meeting to discuss the beauty industry’s role in progressing toward a more sustainable and inclusive future. The group of experts discussed systemic change and the interconnectivity of safety, quality, origin and sustainability, all of which lack clear definitions and standards or are contradictory with one another.
P&G Beauty CEO Alex Keith and professionals from various NGOs concluded these systemic challenges must be addressed through collective action, leveraging science and protecting nature by bringing the two together.
Through its P&G Responsible Beauty platform—a systems-thinking approach guided by quality and performance, safety, sustainability, equality and inclusion, and transparency—the company plans to address this and shared its P&G Responsible Beauty 2030 Goals during the event.
One of those goals is rooted in openly sharing technologies, programs or processes that can encourage a positive impact from the beauty industry. To begin realizing this goal, P&G made its guide for the safe use of botanicals in beauty products publicly available.
The panel discussion during the event covered a range of topics underscoring the extent to which human health and economic prosperity depend on a healthy, natural world, as well as how systems thinking can help the beauty industry navigate and understand today’s disruptions and provide solutions to build back better in a post-COVID world via a focus on responsible growth.
“Making meaningful progress via responsible growth—growth rooted in systems thinking—requires partnership and collaboration,” CEO of P&G Beauty Alex Keith said. “The P&G Responsible Beauty Advisory Council helps to ensure we are bringing external insights and experience into our decision-making, and applying systems thinking to our plans to ensure we consider the interdependencies of one choice on other critical areas.”
“Building business resilience in a way that supports a sustainable world, improves quality of life, respects human rights and protects the environment is possible,” P&G Beauty’s Keith said. “For beauty, this means going beyond environmental practices to address the interdependence of all aspects of product development and corporate behavior—all activities that affect the beauty consumer and the world in which we live.”