At the time, he was largely focused on how his brands can take advantage of the limited, albeit opportunities, that metaverse and web3 currently have to offer, while also charting a long-term strategy for these emerging platforms.

Here, he details the strides L’Oreal brands have made in the past 12 months and what he has planned for the coming year.

What steps have you taken in the last 12 months to deliver outstanding innovation and creativity?

Regarding our transformation to be the undisputed leaders in BeautyTech, I believe that the future of beauty will be physical, digital and virtual. So, with our feet firmly planted in web2 acceleration, we’re laying the groundwork for a new ‘chain beauty’ in web3.

Here, we are cracking the new beauty codes, with innovation and creativity, fostering a new ecosystem of partners. Nyx PMU, for example, announced the world’s first beauty DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) GORJS, to bring together 3D artists and as a launch pad for 3D creators, because creators are at the heart of the metaverse. Beauty has always been about self-expression; we have a first multi-brand avatar partnership at Ready Player Me, where we’ve created hair and makeup looks with L’Oreal Professional and Maybelline.

We support creativity in web3, where L’Oreal and Meta joined forces at StationF as the first Metaverse Startup Accelerator, to power this ecosystem for A/R, V/R, Avatar, 3D, Tokens or web3 UX. And build, by design, a creative, inclusive and diverse metaverse.

Thinking of your partners, including your agencies, what is the most effective recent step you’ve taken to help improve the way you work together?

Our prescribers: beauty consultants, influencers, dermatologists, stylists and makeup artists are a powerful force. They provide expert beauty advice to our consumers. Increasingly, they can also offer services and products through new business models such as social commerce; be it live, affiliate or conversational trading.

We do more than 10,000 live streams in a year, with beauty influencers. In China, but also in markets like Indonesia with TikTok commerce. We share this common passion for beauty with influencers and to improve the way we work, we have an ‘Influencer Charter’ with principles such as transparency, respect and disclosure.

In India, we have an expert salon care program. This happened during the pandemic when salons were closed and consumers needed to connect with stylists to find products, services, and advice. Today, it is a thriving platform with thousands of hairdressers and consumers in a B2B2C model.

In the last 12 months, do you feel that as an industry and a company we have made progress in relation to diversity and inclusion? Why?

Yes, we have progressed as an industry. This year’s Unstereotype Alliance “State of the Industry” report summarizes that while there is progress on issues such as equality in the workplace, much remains to be done in many areas, such as representation.

First, at the L’Oreal Group level, for the fourth year in a row, we have been recognized in Bloomberg’s 2021 Gender Equality Index (GEI). The 2021 GEI highlights 380 companies in 44 countries and is based on criteria including female leadership and talent, gender pay parity, inclusive culture and sexual harassment policies.

L’Oreal has also recently been recognized by European Women on Boards among the STOXX Euro 600 Top 15 Companies, as well as being ranked first by Humpact Emploi France 2020 in the gender equality category. Last year, Equileap ranked L’Oreal in the top five of its ranking, which assesses the degree of gender equality of more than 3,500 publicly traded companies.

Second, L’Oreal conducts thorough and rigorous audits of current staff and hiring policies (for many of its subsidiaries). We work with two independent organisations: Edge (Economic Dividends for Gender Equality) and GEEIS (Gender Equality European and International Standard)

Third, our brands are making progress in diversity and inclusion. We are talking about the L’Oreal Paris Stand Up program.

Maybelline’s ‘Brave Together’ initiative empowers women through destigmatizing mental health, such as anxiety and depression. Launched in September 2020, it is a global initiative with a mission to destigmatize anxiety and depression around the world and make mental health support accessible to all. The brand is committed to reaching one million people through personalized support by 2025.

YSL Beauté’s ‘Abuse is not Love’ initiative, launched in September 2020, aims to combat domestic violence by supporting its non-profit partners’ prevention programs and educating young people about the nine signs of abusive relationships. The program aims to train two million people by 2030.

Lancôme, with ‘Write Your Future’, launched in 2018, is dedicated to empowering women through literacy, mentoring and entrepreneurship to help them write their own future and achieve their happiness. More than 50,000 women have benefited from it since its launch.

Do you think your marketing organization is playing a leadership role when it comes to sustainability, as an industry and within your company, and if so, how?

Our corporate responsibility program is L’Oreal for the Future. It represents social and environmental impact.

We have set bold and measurable targets for 2030 for climate, water, biodiversity and natural resources, in line with what scientific experts demand and what our planet needs.

Our group is the only company in the world that has been awarded AAA by CDP, six years in a row.

For example, the Garnier brand is transforming every part of its value chain to lead the way towards more sustainable practices in the beauty industry. Like the Plastic Stewardship program, which promotes a circular economy.

Regarding your question about the marketing organization, Garnier is the first brand in our group to make a scoring system available to its consumers: Product Impact Labeling (PIL). The PIL score provides clear information on the environmental impact of Garnier products from A to E, with one A product being considered “best in class”. This is done taking into account 14 planetary impact factors and the data is verified by an independent auditor. We now have seven brands in the group that use PIL. 70% of our products will have a PIL score by 2030 for the relevant categories.

The brand is also making an effort to instill sustainable consumer behavior by displaying responsible messaging in advertising, with behavioral nudges to help consumers live greener every day. Many of our brands embrace green behaviors that align with the brand’s DNA and L’Oreal for the Future commitments, such as recharging, recycling, zero water/electricity waste, or green transportation. We are also working on organic production with AdGreen.

Finally, the brand has set up an ocean plastic collection center on the southeast coast of India. This is a collaboration with the brand’s long-standing partner, Plastic for Change. The goal is to collect 2,000 tons of plastic in the first year; that would otherwise end up littering our oceans. The center will also support 2,000 people from the local community with a stable income and access to social services.

In short, the marketing organization can make a positive difference, as we see with Garnier, through initiatives like PIL, through product innovations like Ultra Doux Leave-in Conditioner, by instilling sustainable consumer behavior through messaging publicity and involve communities in positive actions.

What is the most pressing (marketing) issue your business needs to tackle to help tackle the climate emergency, and how are you responding to that?

It is our responsibility to help our 1.5 billion consumers and partners limit their impact when they use our products and encourage them to make sustainable choices.

Digital sustainability is a new eco-expectation of our consumers. It represents 4% of global CO2 emissions. We are working with a French startup, Impact+, to measure and reduce the impact of media on carbon emissions.

You can vote for Asmita Dubey to be named Global Marketer of the Year. Voting closes on January 31.