At the recently held award ceremony of the 5th "Mother River Award", 10 awardees, 5 awarded organizations, and 1 special contribution award winner once again demonstrated to the public a strong environmental protection force and sustainable development concept. As the world's largest cosmetics group, L'Oreal has achieved a century of brilliant history through its sustainable business practices and made a long-term commitment to environmental sustainability from the very beginning. In China, L'Oreal combines the core capabilities and advantages of the enterprise to continuously develop strategic charity projects. To inspire more public enthusiasm for environmental protection, L'Oreal China has been the exclusive sponsor of the "Mother River Award" since 2008 for three consecutive sessions, advocating sustainable environmental protection.
"As responsible corporate citizens, we hope to deepen environmental awareness education among young people and create an atmosphere of public participation in environmental protection, calling on everyone to jointly build a beautiful earth home. At the same time, by achieving our own green operations, we will guide environmentally friendly consumption concepts and promote the sustainable development of the entire society," said Ms. Lan Zhenzhen, Vice President of L'Oreal China.
The "Protect the Mother River" campaign was jointly initiated in 1999 by the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, the National Greening Committee, and seven other departments as a large-scale ecological and environmental protection charity event aimed at youth and mobilizing the whole society. The "Mother River Award" is the only award established for the "Protect the Mother River" campaign. In 2008, L'Oreal (China) Co., Ltd. officially partnered with the "Protect the Mother River" campaign and began supporting the 4th "Mother River Award", hoping to create more environmental forces among the Chinese public, especially among the youth, establish environmental role models, spread their touching stories, and encourage more people to join the environmental stage.
Through L'Oreal's active promotion, the 5th "Mother River Award" transformed environmental pioneers from being relatively unknown to becoming widely recognized by the public, winning more social support for their environmental cause. In addition to conventional methods such as media interviews, L'Oreal also targeted the use of online voting, Weibo platforms, and other fresh and lively formats to attract attention and participation from the public, especially the youth. Ms. Lan Zhenzhen remarked: "The strength of the new generation of environmentalists is increasing year by year, and many post-90s have already begun taking action, which proves the achievements of our environmental education among the youth. L'Oreal will continue to take the responsibility of nurturing young talents, caring for and supporting China's environmental education cause." L'Oreal China committed that by 2013, it would invest approximately RMB 6.3 million to support the "Protect the Mother River" campaign.
Understanding that many netizens are enthusiastic about environmental causes but are unable to personally participate in tree planting activities in various regions due to time and regional restrictions, after World Environment Day on June 5, L'Oreal China ingeniously launched the "Sustainable Environmental Protection" L'Oreal virtual tree planting campaign along the Yangtze River Basin, extending the influence of the offline physical Youth Forest construction to the broader online world. By skillfully utilizing the popular Weibo platform, L'Oreal encouraged netizens to pass on a touch of green through their fingertips, making lush trees line both banks of the mother river, while also sharing green knowledge about the regional adaptability of different tree species during the activity. This event drew the attention of over 10 million netizens to the "Protect the Mother River" campaign, with 1.85 million virtual trees planted, creating a peak of public participation in environmental protection both online and offline.
Nowadays, protecting the ecological environment around business areas has become a tradition for L'Oreal. In China, L'Oreal has carried out a series of environmental education and publicity activities in factories across various locations. The "L'Oreal Cup Green Environmental Action" was officially launched at the Suzhou Shangmei factory in 2002, held annually, focusing on promoting the importance of environmental protection to schools around the factory and selecting different environmental themes based on local characteristics. Over the past few years, the factory has organized employee volunteers to carry out lively and interesting green environmental actions such as "Preventing white pollution, reducing water pollution, recycling used batteries" and "Protecting the Yangtze River, saving the Baiji dolphin". More than 600,000 children have participated in these activities.
L'Oreal's sustainable development projects have endowed the cosmetic brands under its umbrella with more social responsibility, receiving positive responses from all brands, who collectively contribute to the cause of environmental education. To let the seeds of green environmental protection sprout in the hearts of young people and support them in putting ideas into practice, this March, Garnier teamed up with the world's largest student organization, the "International Economics and Business Students Association" (AIESEC), to establish the "Garnier Green Idea Action Fund", conducting six-week-long green environmental courses in more than 40 high schools, not only teaching students about green environmental knowledge but also encouraging them to apply what they learned in class. Biotherm collaborated with the China Environmental Protection Foundation to fully launch the "Water Energy" environmental charity project this year, fully supporting the water pollution research project of the United Nations Tongji University College of Environment and Sustainable Development, helping improve drinking water conditions in water-scarce areas in Gansu and other western regions, and promoting the development of local communities.
For L'Oreal, the sustainable development strategy is not only a business philosophy but also the ultimate goal of enterprise development. L'Oreal innovatively proposed the concept of "corporate customer responsibility" for sustainable consumption. L'Oreal believes that sustainable consumption and sustainable development should go hand in hand. The concept of sustainable development can help companies establish a good reputation among stakeholders, attract excellent employees, thereby driving long-term success of the company. Moreover, it can establish the core competitiveness of enterprises through methods such as developing innovative environmental products and optimizing resource utilization efficiency throughout the product cycle.