Key Takeaways:
Over the last five years, there has been a swathe of carbon capture beauty deals, prototypes, and pilot runs, incorporating carbon into packaging, fragrances, and ingredients.
In 2020, L'Oréal announced production of carbon-captured plastic bottles in collaboration with energy giant TotalEnergies and carbon recycling major LanzaTech, with products launching last year. In 2021, Coty developed a carbon-captured ethanol with LanzaTech set to be integrated into its fragrances, with a first production run in 2022. More recently, last year, Element Beauty Group debuted carbon-captured beauty packaging, launching into Sephora with Californian makeup brand Caliray, and Carbon Upcycling collaborated with Urban Decay for the launch of its carbon-captured tubes in the same year. This year, Grupo Boticário launched Brazil's first carbon-captured ethanol fragrance under its Arbo Atlantica brand in collaboration with LanzaTech.
So, is this a sign of more to come? Can beauty truly integrate carbon capture into its future? Or is there a risk of getting stuck in test phases and struggling to scale?
The Exploration of Alternative Ideas
Five years ago, at the ADF&PCD packaging trade show in Paris, France, Monique Large, Innovation Design Consultant and founder of trend consultation agency Pollen Consulting, put forward carbon capture as a promising yet fictional opportunity for beauty brands looking to respond to the climate crisis.
Fast-forward to today, and Large is “genuinely surprised” that beauty companies have brought carbon capture innovations to market, explaining that her initial hypothesis had simply been intended to spark discussion and encourage the “exploration of alternative ideas.”
And while some carbon capture innovations have indeed happened in beauty, Paul Foulkes-Arellano, circular growth expert and Non-Executive Director for Circular Material Scale-Ups, said it was unlikely these would extend beyond pilots. “I don't think it's a core interest for the beauty industry, nor are carbon capture players that interested in beauty. There are bigger fish to fry, such as energy, heavy manufacturing, and transport,” Foulkes-Arellano told BeautyMatter.
Eva Lagarde, sustainable beauty expert and founder of industry intelligence platform re-sources, doesn't entirely agree. While beauty does only require a small percentage of carbon capture technologies—compared to industries like construction or automotives—meaning cost-value ratios aren't always relevant, some of the bigger players able to scale, like L'Oréal, are clearly investing in this space, Lagarde said. And though wider industry engagement remains sporadic—due to the high costs associated with these high-tech solutions—she said any industry effort, be it occasional or small, is better than doing nothing at all. “The more we remove carbon from the atmosphere, the better.”
“... Packaging is a significant consumer of petrochemicals, and reducing its impact from every angle is always a good idea. No solution is perfect today, so exploring options is key. Sustainable solutions are still relatively new, and finding the right model will take time. Carbon capture is part of the solution.” Lagarde suggested a focus on perfume formulas and beauty packaging as a good place to start.
Carbon Capture: One Environmental Tool for Industry
Carbon capture helps move beauty even further away from its traditional linear model towards circularity, which is key to making real and impactful environmental change. Some of the technologies available today mean that carbon, or CO2, can be captured from the atmosphere or waste streams and reintroduced into packaging materials; used to make ethanol; or even integrated into other ingredients used in formulations. And efforts like this take the industry far beyond existing efforts in refillable beauty, recyclability of new products, and upcycled ingredients. But it is a complex concept to integrate.
A collaborative and partnership-led approach is needed to ensure economies of scale when integrating carbon capture technologies into supply chains and final products.
Foulkes-Arellano said relationships also have to be built out with capable and innovative supply chain partners, many of which were springing up, but only a few of which were looking to work with beauty brands. “The supply chain needs to invest and grow; this will take time,” he said, but a good in-point for the beauty industry will be across ingredients, given how much is produced annually and the overall benefits that can be achieved with upcycling carbon here.
According to David Pina, Executive Director for Creative and Innovation at Element Group USA (which oversees Element Beauty Group), the future of carbon capture in beauty will rely on the industry's understanding of sustainability and its ability to “realistically explore all viable options.” Carbon capture, Pina reiterated, is just one tool in combating the global climate crisis, and integration into beauty only one part of a “challenging puzzle.”
“Supply chains within the beauty industry are in flux with tariffs and economic uncertainty, causing a disruption in achieving long-term goals,” he said. “The diligence in maintaining the course is key—long-term, net-zero goals may take a little more time.”
Why? Because it also requires support from retailers and consumers to recognize that efforts are worth the extra investment. Beauty will have to work hard to promote carbon capture achievements within its community and inspire participation for things to progress, he explained.
Tech Costs and Fragmented Supply Chains
Peter Zhou, Engineer on Special Projects at Oco—part of Carbon Upcycling Technologies—said carbon capture in beauty is certainly “more niche.”
However, given the millions of cosmetic containers produced for every product line, Zhou said there are significant opportunities to reduce emissions via carbon capture—slashing CO2 footprints by as much as 20% in some cases.
There are two significant challenges facing the industry, though: technology costs and supply chain fragmentation. The current premium that exists in using new carbon-captured materials, he said, presents a “barrier to adoption,” as does complex packaging and beauty supply chains.
For carbon capture to truly advance in beauty and scale to reach commercial viability, Zhou said the industry needs to play “a more active role in piloting and investing.”
The fact that beauty is “relatively advanced in terms of its technology adoption” bodes well for future carbon capture developments, with the engineer predicting beauty carbon capture set to become the norm within 5-10 years, at first, as a nice-to-have, but then as a “critical piece in consumer decision-making.”
Consumers, Consumers, Consumers…
Back in 2020, when Large outlined the hypothetical push towards carbon capture beauty, she made very clear it could be an ideal focus to help calm “eco-anxious Gen Z consumers.”
Generation Z consumers—today ages 13-28 years old—have long been linked to eco-anxiety. A global survey of 10,000 young people, published in The Lancet in 2021, indicated that 45% of Gen Z consumers said climate anxiety affected them daily, and a 2023 report by the American Psychological Association (APA) found Gen Z experienced heightened levels of stress and trauma associated with the threat or direct influence of climate disasters.
But Gen Z has also long been regarded as an activist generation that responds to environmental concerns and fears with action, led by fellow Gen Zer Greta Thunberg.
So, is this the consumer group to target with carbon capture beauty innovations? And are eco concerns really as present in beauty?
Major consumer data and trend specialists have highlighted environmental focus as key for beauty consumers in 2025. Euromonitor International includes “eco-evaluation” in its top five beauty and personal care trends for this year, stating beauty consumers are placing “higher focus on sustainability.” Mintel also includes “turning the tide” as one of its top beauty trends for 2025, where consumers are demanding a “seamless connection between ethical practices and high-performance beauty solutions.” For beauty brands, therefore, eco-ethical expectations from consumers have never been higher.
However, some believe sustainability and the climate crisis may have taken a backseat to the world's ongoing economic crisis. Lagarde, for example, believes that only a small number of “eco-activist” consumers are willing to truly invest in sustainable products because of the higher price tags associated with such innovations, and only big brands with considerable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) targets are acting to please investors.
Regulations and “Nontoxic Circularity”
Kristen Allison, Global Director for Products, Sales and Marketing at LanzaTech, said consumer engagement is certainly a hurdle for sustainable beauty brands and will require much more focus on education moving forward but added that carbon capture is certainly not a future technology in beauty. LanzaTech's CarbonSmart portfolio—including surfactants and advanced packaging materials—like polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—for example, is already being widely used by several major beauty and personal care suppliers and, thus, ultimately, brands today, Allison said.
Looking ahead, she said the avenues beauty will need to take to create genuine and impactful change must center around working far beyond the decarbonization of products and towards creating an entirely new model where waste carbon becomes a valuable resource. Overcoming challenges ahead also relies on “long-term commitment from brands, collaboration across suppliers, and supportive policy that rewards low-carbon materials.”
Foulkes-Arellano agreed, explaining that carbon capture is considered “a bit of a red herring by environmentalists,” because the real focus should instead be on carbon removal entirely—a concept only being addressed by a few companies like Swiss firm Climeworks Corporation with its direct air capture technology. Emphasis moving forward must be on “nontoxic circularity,” as things progress, he said, with industry working to decrease emissions while simultaneously removing microplastics and other toxics from the products being sold.
According to Pina, beauty is “still in the early stages of the process,” and achieving carbon capture goals will depend on brand investment for that first step, taking a crawl-walk-run method to slowly add to progress as business grows.
