The Paris-headquartered firm has developed the sustainable sourcing project as part of its Sharing Beauty With All initiative, and has seen L’Oreal partner with three other companies in order to pool their expertise.
Andean Valley, a Bolivian company which works directly with quinoa growers; Proinpa, a Bolivian foundation which promotes the conservation and responsible use of natural resources in Bolivia; and EcoTerra, a responsible importer, have all teamed up with the beauty behemoth in this collaboration.
L’Oreal claims this partnership will provide long-term benefits to 250 quinoa growers and their families in the Uyuni and Potosi regions of Bolivia.
Support
With the partnership, L'Oréal is also providing three types of support for sustainable production of the quinoa real variety, which is a premium grade variety of quinoa appreciated for the large size of its grain.
The support that will be provided will be for training local farmers on best agricultural practices, preventing erosion by planting native local legumes, bushes and herbaceous plants, and the transfer of scientific knowledge and expertise between L’Oréal and its local partners.
This latest partnership builds on this as quinoa husk was previously considered to be waste and therefore it wasn’t used; so this new initiative gives a new opportunity for the cultivation of the plant.
Cosmetics use
Quinoa husk contains saponins and polyphenols which make it an interesting renewable cosmetic ingredient.
L’Oréal researchers have proven exfoliating properties of the quinoa husk extract, and a green chemistry based extraction method has been developed by Chimex, a L'Oréal subsidiary which specialises in designing and developing eco-responsible processes.
As part os L’Oreal’s own sustainability programme mentioned above, it aims for 100% of the group's products to offer environmental or social benefits by 2020.
By the end of 2014, 46% of the raw materials used by L'Oréal were already of renewable origin - a total of 1,400 ingredients from nearly 300 plant species in over 60 countries.