Internet giant Alibaba Group has signed a three-year collaboration agreement with the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oréal, to promote the circular economy in the beauty sector in China.
Alibaba Chairman and CEO Daniel Zhang and L’Oréal Chairman Jean-Paul Agon signed the memorandum of understanding in Beijing on the sidelines of French President Emmanuel Macron’s three-day visit to China.
The partnership, which will run until 2025, seeks to set green and low-carbon standards, develop new products and create measurable circular economy solutions in China’s $87 billion beauty and personal care industry.
“Sustainable development has become a consensus and commitment beyond national borders, and it is also the common pursuit of every company with a sense of social responsibility,” Zhang said.
Alibaba and L’Oréal added that they would work together in three areas: low-carbon staples, logistics, marketing and consumer education, according to the memo.
The partners will seek to green the beauty supply chain, from storage, packaging and distribution to recycling, as well as promote sustainable lifestyles among consumers.
The agreement builds on previous efforts by L’Oréal and Alibaba to encourage green consumption. The partners signed an agreement in 2018 to use environmentally friendly packaging for all L’Oréal products sold in China.
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Zhang said more than 5,000 French consumer brands sold more than RMB 100 billion ($14.5 billion) worth of products to Chinese consumers last year through digital retail platforms under the Alibaba umbrella.
French SMEs that have not yet opened physical stores in China are using cross-border e-commerce to sell French products to Chinese consumers.
In July last year, Alibaba joined with consumer goods companies to publish guidelines on promoting green consumption. The guide offers ways for brands to develop low-carbon products, promote green initiatives and achieve green logistics.
To date, 24 companies have participated in the project, including L’Oréal and the French multinational food group Danone.
Alibaba’s logistics arm, Cainiao, has a distribution center near Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport and can handle hundreds of thousands of packages a day, supporting Sino-French trade.
