The Sustainable Cosmetics Summit will return to New York City on June 5 and 6, 2025, bringing together industry leaders from Aveda, Sephora, Terracycle and more to foster discussion on the pressing sustainability challenges in beauty and personal care. Organized by Ecovia Intelligence, this 16th North American edition will focus on topics like green materials, circularity, future trends, and sustainability schemes.
In anticipation of the summit, we spoke with five of the featured speakers to hear how their organizations are driving innovation and accountability across the value chain: Cara Eaton, Head of Sustainability, Consumer Care at Croda Beauty, Tom Szaky, CEO at Terracycle, Carley Klekas, Global Director, Product Sustainability at Sephora, Mathilde Allègre, Global Sustainability Manager, Life Science at Lubrizol, and Shane Wolf, President at Aveda.
Together, their insights offer a preview of the discussions shaping the course of sustainable beauty.
CDU: What do you see as the biggest sustainability challenge facing the cosmetics and personal care industry today, and how can brands and suppliers work to overcome it?
Tom Szaky: TerraCycle specializes in creating supply chains to collect and recycle hard-to-recycle items that would otherwise go to landfills or be incinerated. Many cosmetics and personal care products and their packaging fall into this category, not because they can’t technically be recycled, but rather, because it is not profitable to do so. In other words, the cost of collecting and recycling these items is not worth what the resulting material can be sold for.
As a result, many personal care products face significant barriers to local recyclability. Barriers include residual product that must be professionally cleaned out after shredding, the use of packaging made from multiple mixed materials that need to be separated during processing, and formats like flexible films or small sizes that require specialized equipment to process. All of these factors add cost to the recycling process, making these products unprofitable to recycle locally.
To overcome this, brands must design for circularity from the outset—eliminating packaging and hard-to-recycle formats where possible, shifting to reusable packaging, making packaging recyclable, integrating recycled content and consider funding take-back programs if their products are not reusable nor locally recyclable in the end.
Mathilde Allegre: The beauty industry is at a pivotal moment where sustainability isn’t just a trend—it’s a necessity. The biggest challenge we face today is navigating the intricate web of sustainability data. Quality data is the backbone of genuine sustainability efforts, enabling us to meet new reporting standards and substantiate our claims, steering clear of greenwashing.
From the traceability data required by regulations like the EUDR to comprehensive Product Carbon Footprints (PCF) that measure the environmental impact of our ingredients and processes, the demand for precise, reliable data is immense. However, the lack of a standardized PCF methodology poses a significant hurdle for ingredient suppliers. Harmonizing carbon data is critical to provide comparable metrics, allowing us to measure the true impact and progress of our sustainable solutions.
At Lubrizol, we are committed to pioneering this data-driven approach. By focusing on accurate, transparent data, we can tackle key sustainability challenges head-on—from responsible sourcing and reducing our environmental footprint to transitioning away from fossil-based materials and ensuring sustainable end-of-life solutions. Together, with our partners and customers, we can transform the beauty industry into a beacon of sustainability.
CDU: How is innovation in ingredients, packaging, or manufacturing shaping the future of sustainable beauty, and what developments are you most excited to discuss at the Summit?
Tom Szaky: Packaging innovation often centers on material selection (e.g., shifting to alloy, or to compostable polymers etc.). While material innovation is important, we believe there is an exciting and critical need to innovate on the systems in which those materials will flow. For example, shifting to compostable packaging is only beneficial if there are composters that want to take that material.
Another area we are excited to discuss is closed-loop innovation, which is the gold standard of recycling circularity. We will share some of TerraCycle’s latest closed loop innovations, from recycling running shoes back into themselves with Asics, to creating new pens from recycled pens with Pilot. Where direct product-to-product closed loop isn’t yet possible, we also have many examples of supply chain closed-loop applications where brand owners can integrate their own unique PCR into secondary products like POS displays, office appliances, and more.
Finally, the ultimate circular innovation we are excited about is going fully reusable, meaning packaging is used again for its originally intended purpose. The more we can close the loop and eliminate disposable packaging entirely, the closer we get to creating a true circular economy for beauty.
Shane Wolf: As a pioneer in plant-powered beauty, Aveda has always believed that nature holds the key to performance and sustainability. So, for me, some of the most exciting innovations shaping sustainability in this industry are happening in the world of ingredients.
A key development in this space is the rise of natural biotechnology – which, for Aveda, means using modern methods of technology in partnership with nature to obtain the best ingredients for our formulations. We feel it’s the best way to achieve high-performance product results while maintaining our commitment to using naturally derived ingredients.
One of the most promising areas of natural biotechnology is fermentation – a powerful tool that allows us to create high-performance ingredients without relying on petrochemicals, animal byproducts or intensive farming practices. Our supplier partners use supercritical CO2 extraction, which produces potent plant extracts without harsh solvent residues. The CO2 can then be recycled for the next extraction – lending to a circular process and overall, less impact on the environment.
Carley Klekas: There continues to be and always will be more innovation in ingredients and packaging in the industry. These innovations are helping to solve challenges in new ways. At Sephora, we have our Beauty (Re)Purposed program in all our stores in the US and Canada in partnership with Pact Collective.
With this program, we are making it easier for consumers to bring in empty hard-to-recycle packaging to give it a second life. We’ve collected more than 68,800 lbs. of beauty packaging so far. This is just one way we are helping to solve the environmental concerns we face and do something new together.
There are also some really unique things happening in the industry, for example, in upcycling of ingredients from otherwise waste products like Sargassum, to an increase in refillable componentry from packaging companies that are great to see. I’m also excited to learn from others at the Summit that have new innovations to share.
CDU: Regulatory shifts and consumer demand are driving sustainability initiatives—how should industry stakeholders navigate these evolving expectations while maintaining product efficacy and performance?
Shane Wolf: Today, many groups are influencing sustainability requirements, be it scientists, regulators, NGOs, retailers or consumers. New science identifies which practices need to be modified or which ingredients need to be replaced with better options, which then impact regulations around the world. At Aveda, we take input from all areas to shape our own internal standards and usually meet the most stringent requirements so our products can be sold globally. We also recognize that this is a journey, so as we continue to learn, our requirements may also evolve.
Aveda was one of the first companies to make naturally derived claims, initially based on an internal definition requiring a natural component in each ingredient. This definition evolved several times until we became part of the group that created ISO 16128 — the standard that defines what “naturally derived” means for the industry and the basis for how our claims are calculated today.
With each evolution, we not only changed how we calculated our percentages but also how we formulated — each time striving for higher levels of natural content.
I believe it’s crucial to have a deep understanding of the regulations that impact your industry. When possible, getting involved with committees that shape regulations and securing a seat at the table allows you to bring your expertise to guide how regulations are formed — and to anticipate future changes that could impact your business.
Cara Eaton: Data management is crucial; appropriate data granularity across operations and product portfolios allows for the creation of ambitious, yet achievable, targets while also enabling the ability to advance or adjust as regulation evolves.
Through a quantified understanding of impacts across key categories, brands can identify sustainability hotspots – alongside potential opportunities for efficiency and cost savings – and create tangible actions to address these. Combined with thorough, scientific, performance testing, it is possible to ensure that a commitment to sustainability does not compromise efficacy.
At Croda Beauty, our data includes product carbon footprints, for which we have approximately 1,500 statements across our portfolio, life cycle assessments, biodegradability statements, and insights into other key data points. Our customers benefit from data and information that can support them to manage risk and meet regulatory requirements, while building a compelling narrative to engage and educate consumers.
Mathilde Allègre: The beauty industry is at the intersection of evolving regulations and heightened consumer expectations. Today’s consumers are savvy and demand products that don’t compromise on efficacy while also championing sustainability.
This dual expectation is reshaping our industry, and stakeholders must rise to the challenge.
To meet this demand, industry stakeholders must innovate relentlessly, creating high-performance ingredients that are also environmentally friendly. Innovation is the key to developing less impactful yet effective solutions.
At the same time, we must stay ahead of regulatory changes such as CSRD, EUDR, and the Green Claims Directive, which call for increased transparency and rigorous data.
Navigating this complex landscape requires a multifaceted approach. Investing in cutting-edge technologies and methodologies that ensure compliance and enhance sustainability is crucial. This means developing new materials and processes that reduce environmental impact without sacrificing product performance.
At Lubrizol, we are committed to pioneering such innovations, ensuring that our solutions meet both regulatory standards and consumer expectations.
Furthermore, the industry must invest in sustainability experts and advanced tools to address these new challenges effectively. By doing so, we can provide the transparency and data required by regulations and demanded by consumers, positioning ourselves as leaders in sustainable beauty.
CDU: What key takeaways do you hope attendees will gain from your session at the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit, and how can they apply these insights to their own businesses?
Cara Eaton: Our session at the Sustainable Cosmetics Summit delves into the granularity of data available after undertaking a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), outlining how this evaluation can translate into product sustainability and efficiency improvements.
The session will uncover the process and methodology behind creating an LCA and unpack a case study from Croda Beauty’s own portfolio. The process is quite rigorous; however, the insights that can be gained can prove to be extremely valuable for reporting companies as well as their value chain partners, including both suppliers and customers, even offering insights further downstream to consumer-level.
We hope that attendees will develop a deeper understanding of the potential that data holds. Not only to support claim substantiation but to assist brands in achieving their sustainability goals, to proactively prepare for changing regulation, and to help them form compelling product narratives.
Through the insights shared, brands can use this information to evaluate environmental impacts of products and systems beyond GHG emissions. From this, they can establish goals and targets that are relevant to their activities and track their progress towards these.
Carley Klekas: My aim is for attendees to have a better understanding of the work we are doing at Sephora to enhance the sustainability conversations in the industry. With our global initiatives, we hope to contribute and help move the industry forward and to inspire teams to continue to raise the bar by taking into account also the operational impact.
We want to show that even if it’s a challenge, it’s possible. I hope that will be demonstrated in the session. We all have a role to play in this, whether you’re a retailer, brand, manufacturer, or a consultant in the space. We are only going to move in the right direction if we do so together.