Blending performance with sustainability
Driven by our Company purpose of ‘creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature’, we are constantly searching for sustainable new fragrance and beauty solutions.
The challenge is to balance the growing demand for natural products with the greatest respect for the natural world. Find out more about some of our key focus areas and recent projects in this exciting area.
Innovation in fragrances
Today’s consumers are increasingly seeking fragranced products made from natural ingredients. At the same time, the demand for products with wellbeing and emotional benefits is also rising. That’s why we place a special emphasis on these two areas. We are also working to reduce the carbon footprint of our fragrance molecule development process.
“People from all walks of life increasingly want to enjoy the delight of fragrances produced with care for nature and the local communities who provide the ingredients. Givaudan is leading the way in making the future of perfume more sustainable and ensuring that our customers can meet the expectations of people everywhere for responsibly produced fragrances.”
Maurizio Volpi, President of Givaudan’s Fragrance & Beauty
Discover our fragrance innovations
In response to the increasing demand for naturalness in fragrance products, we launched our Naturality Index™. This powerful design aid supports perfumers in their choices of ingredients, enabling them to craft creative and unique fragrances that are respectful to nature. By using the latest and emerging science, we are able to find new, sustainable ways of making existing products. Patchoulina, for example, is a new patchouli breed developed locally in Indonesia, which is more tolerant to disease and so provides farmers with a higher yield.
Another key focus are for our Fragrances team is creating products to enhance wellbeing and self-esteem, and to promote a positive mindset. We are already leading the industry in researching the effects of odours on emotion. Our studies have revealed how scents can increase positive emotions, decrease negative mood states, disrupt cravings and reduce physiological signs of stress such as inflammation. All of our work is underpinned by our commitment to green chemistry, which helps us to produce fragrances that are safe for consumers, conserve resources and reduce environmental impacts.
The FiveCarbon Path™ is our vision to drive Givaudan’s fragrance molecule development, while at the same time delivering on our environmental commitments. Every perfume we create is a complex mixture of ingredients, including naturals, which are all based on carbon elements – often as the core backbone. FiveCarbon Path™ is essentially about responsible innovation. It allows us to consider the potential impact of our processes and products on the environment by ensuring that we:
- Increase the use of renewable carbon
- Increase carbon efficiency in synthesis
- Maximise biodegradable carbon
- Increase the ‘odour per carbon ratio’ with high impact material
- Use upcycled carbon from side streams
Innovation in beauty
In Active Beauty, we create products that enhance skin and hair throughout life. At the same time, our growing understanding of the skin microbiome is allowing us to develop more personalised solutions for better skin for everyone. We translate the amazing benefits of plants, microorganisms and vegetable sources with the latest sustainable biotechnologies into highly functional, high-performance products.
Discover our beauty innovations
Givaudan’s expertise in blue biotechnologies draws on molecules and active ingredients found in the ocean: a highly sustainable resource that offers powerful beauty properties. At our dedicated marine centre in Brittany, France, we research and develop technology to cultivate microalgae and identify new molecules that bring skin care benefits to all.
Green biotechnology means exploring ways to unlock the skincare benefits of plants in our portfolio of sustainably sourced natural ingredients, reducing waste by using all parts of the plant.
The science of white biotechnology lies in creating active cosmetic ingredients through the use of microorganisms (fermentation and bioconversion) or enzymes (biocatalysis): natural processes that result in the use of eco-friendly solvents.
An extremely exciting field in cosmetics innovation is metagenomics (‘meta’, meaning ‘beyond’ and ‘genomics’, the science of gene analysis). Experts at Givaudan are rapidly gaining new insights about the microbes on the skin surface. By mapping this microflora, our scientific teams have the information to develop new molecules that can correct a variety of skin problems. These molecules are inactive until they come into contact with the skin’s microflora, when they instantly start working to normalise and soothe the problem condition.
At our Green Fractionation Centre of Excellence in Avignon, France, we master the science of sustainable plant extractions through one of our most innovative biomimetic technologies: Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents (NaDES). This technology enables us to extract an analyte from a sample according to its physical or chemical properties.
