From awareness to action: How L’Oréal is unlocking sustainable consumption

Sustainable consumption has never lacked moral clarity. What it lacks is a way to come alive. Many consumers are not against environmentalism. On the contrary, they understand sustainability and are willing to embrace greener ideas. But in the moment of purchase, a label that says “more sustainable” is often not enough to change behavior. That is the gap L’Oréal is trying to address. At this year’s China International Carbon Neutrality Expo in Technologies, Products and Achievements (hereinafter “Carbon Neutrality Expo”) in Shanghai, the company released its “2026 Consumer Research Report on Refills,” which lays bare one of the most stubborn tensions in sustainable consumption: awareness is high, but action remains limited. According to the report, more than 81% of consumers are aware of beauty refills, with awareness in makeup — led by cushion products — reaching 62%. Among female consumers, 52% said they were willing to buy refills, but only 24% had actually done so in the past 12 months, leaving a 28-point “Say-Do Gap” between stated intention and actual purchase. What these figures reveal is not that consumers are indifferent to sustainability. Rather, they show that sustainable consumption still lacks a strong enough mechanism to turn intention into action at the point of purchase. Consumers may support greener choices in principle, but when buying actually happens, price, convenience, habit and immediate feedback all shape the final decision. The challenge, then, is not simply to make consumers aware of sustainable options. It is to make the next purchase feel worthwhile, easy and personally relevant. For L’Oréal China, this gap is not a new problem. Since the Group launched its “L’Oréal for the Future” sustainability programme in 2020, L’Oréal China has structured its sustainability agenda around three broad tracks: sustainable innovation in products and packaging; a sustainability ecosystem built with suppliers, startups and partners; and sustainable consumption, the part that sits closest to the consumer. Among the three, sustainable consumption is the hardest part to solve, because it is not about changing a single product or package, but about changing the choices consumers make in their everyday purchases. As the only beauty group to have exhibited at the Carbon Neutrality Expo for four consecutive years, L’Oréal’s continued presence there reflects a long-running effort to answer a more difficult question: how can sustainable consumption move from something correct but distant into a daily choice with real staying power? Refills are giving sustainable consumption new momentum To answer that question, L’Oréal needed a concrete entry point into consumers’ everyday beauty routines. Refills offered exactly that. They translate the broad idea of sustainability into a choice that can be made at the moment of replenishment, moving sustainable consumption from principle into action. Consider a familiar scene: a consumer picks up a jar of cream, notices a sustainability claim and thinks, “That sounds good.” But that reaction is often too vague to explain what the choice means, let alone change an existing buying habit. That is not the consumer’s fault. Sustainability is a vast idea, and for many people, it can feel abstract and far removed from daily life. Consumers may feel positively toward companies that invest in sustainability over the long term, but they do not always understand what those companies have done, what has changed, or why any of it should matter to their own routines. That is what makes sustainable consumption so difficult. As long as it is filtered through corporate storytelling, even significant brand investment can struggle to resonate with consumers. To turn sustainability from something that merely sounds right into something people want to take part in, brands first have to translate it into a language consumers can understand and see. Refills are one concrete entry point L’Oréal has identified. The group began rolling out its refill strategy in 2020. Refills allow consumers to keep the outer packaging and replace only the product inside. They do not ask consumers to create a new need; instead, they offer a lighter, lower-friction sustainable choice within a replenishment behavior that already exists. More importantly, North Asia already has a consumer base that is receptive to this model. According to Zhenzhen Lan, Chief Corporate Affairs and Engagement Officer of L’Oréal North Asia and China, consumers across the region, including China, are far more open to refills than those in many other markets. Combined with the high usage frequency and strong repurchase patterns of categories such as skincare, haircare and cushion products, that makes North Asia one of the most promising markets globally for scaling refill programmes. From the consumer’s perspective, the appeal of refills lies not only in the fact that they feel “right,” but also in the fact that they are practical. The main reason consumers buy refills is not environmental concern, but the lower price, noted, JeeSeon Park, Chief Sustainability Officer of L’Oréal North Asia and China — a finding reinforced by the company’s 2026 consumer report on Refills, which shows cost savings as the top driver of refill purchases. Refills also lower the barrier to participating in sustainability. Consumers do not need to understand complex supply-chain decarbonisation, ingredient innovation or corporate ESG targets. Refills offer a more direct and simpler form of action: when replenishing a product, consumers replace only what has been used up, reducing unnecessary packaging waste. For consumers, this does not require learning an entirely new way to shop. It is easier to understand and easier to act on. But the report also shows that willingness to buy does not always lead to purchase. For consumers who are willing but have not yet acted, the main barriers are availability and product concerns, such as whether refills are easy to buy, whether they are hygienic and whether they fit the original packaging. For those who are unwilling to buy refills at all, the barriers are more rooted in existing habits, concerns over convenience and hygiene, as well as the belief that the price is still not low enough. Creating ‘refill appeal’ through multiple touchpoints This explains why L’Oréal has spent the past few years building content, experiences and consumer education around refills. What it is trying to create is not a one-off moment of interest, but a refill economy that can make sustainable consumption more mainstream. But no new consumption model takes hold through products alone. For the refill economy to work, L’Oréal has to answer a question that goes beyond whether refill products exist: Why would consumers actively choose them the next time they shop? To that end, L’Oréal is not relying on a single tactic. It is working across multiple touchpoints at once: using interactive experiences to lower the barrier to understanding, expanding choice through a broader multi-brand and multi-category product matrix, and amplifying reach through celebrities and social platforms. On the experience side, L’Oréal has been working to turn refills from a product sitting on the shelf into something consumers can see, take part in and remember. At the 2025 Carbon Neutrality Expo, the group brought refills to the public through a giant “Refill Carousel” installation, making the format more visual, more shareable and easier for younger consumers to recall. The installation later travelled to several university campuses, bringing the refill message into youth culture. In late May, at Fudan University’s “Youth Fun” sports sala, L’Oréal set up a “Refill Station” where students could try refill products on site. The station was part of the offline rollout of the “Youth Fun” program, a public welfare project developed by L’Oréal with the China Youth Development Foundation. As part of the project, student teams operate a charity store on JD.com, selling refills and other products, with the proceeds used to support students from low-income backgrounds. By bringing products from the online charity sale into a physical campus setting, the “Refill Station” allowed students to try refills for themselves and understand how they are used. Similar activities have since expanded to universities across China. Through this format, L’Oréal is moving refills from e-commerce shelves into the real-life settings of young consumers. At this year’s Carbon Neutrality Expo, L’Oréal further upgraded the experience with a 360-degree rotating photo stand. Visitors could stand in front of a giant refill poster wall and create their own refill-themed video moments. A flip-card installation at the booth also explained, in a more accessible way, the product design logic behind reducing, replacing and recycling. Beyond interactive installations, L’Oréal also hosted the Sustainable Consumption Salon at its booth, bringing together guests to discuss refill consumption and explore how sustainable consumption can become part of everyday life. On the product side, refills are also moving beyond isolated experiments by a handful of brands and into a more systematic product matrix. On June 16, World Refill Day, L’Oréal launched its third #JoinTheRefillMovement global initiative. As the group’s largest sustainable consumption initiative to date, the campaign brought together four divisions, 18 brands and 28 products, with several brands joining for the first time. The number of L’Oréal refill products has grown 17-fold over the past five years. The shift suggests that refillable beauty is moving beyond isolated sustainability experiments by a handful of brands and into a more systematic product matrix. For consumers, only when there are enough brands, categories and price points to choose from can refills move from occasional trial to a more regular option — and eventually support a broader habit of sustainable consumption. On the storytelling front, L’Oréal is trying to move refills beyond a functional product and turn them into a social topic that is easier to see and discuss. As part of the #JoinTheRefillMovement global initiative, the group invited celebrities and brand ambassadors to record sustainability messages for refill products, using familiar faces and social platforms to bring a relatively unfamiliar product format into the everyday language of younger consumers. The role of these celebrity videos is not only to amplify reach. It is also to use familiar faces and voices to turn refills from a relatively unfamiliar product format into a lifestyle choice consumers may pause over, talk about and even imitate on social platforms. L’Oréal has also passed the #JoinTheRefillMovement conversation on to ordinary consumers. On Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), the group launched an interactive campaign encouraging users to create content around L’Oréal Group refill products or products with sustainable attributes. So far, the #JoinTheRefillMovement topic has generated more than 10 million views on Xiaohongshu, helping refills enter the social language of younger consumers. Embedding sustainability into everyday purchases But consumers are unlikely to change their shopping habits simply because they attended a carbon neutrality expo, filmed a check-in video or saw a celebrity sustainability message on social media. To move from interest to habit, there needs to be an interface that is lower-friction, higher-frequency and closer to everyday life. That is where L’Oréal’s partnership with Ant Group comes in. At this year’s Carbon Neutrality Expo, L’Oréal and Ant Group jointly launched the “Join The Refill Movement” Declaration on Sustainable Consumption and Green Lifestyle. Through three initiatives — adding Green Certification to eligible L’Oréal products, launching the “Refill Forest” project and establishing a long-term ecological restoration programme — the partnership is designed to turn each green choice made by consumers into something more tangible for the planet. Ant Forest was launched on Alipay in 2016. As one of the world’s largest public welfare projects by participation, it has now surpassed 700 million cumulative users. That means Ant Forest is not a marginal charity feature, but a green-behaviour scenario embedded in high-frequency everyday life. Within this system, low-carbon actions such as walking, paying utility bills online or using electronic invoices are converted into virtual “green energy.” Once users accumulate enough energy, they can plant a virtual tree in the app. Through Ant Forest’s public welfare projects, that virtual tree is then turned into a real tree in an area affected by desertification. It is this everyday behavioural loop that makes Ant Forest valuable to L’Oréal. Chief Sustainability Officer Park said Alipay’s reach in China makes it one of the most effective ways to bring refills into everyday consumer behaviour. For L’Oréal, the partnership with Ant Group goes beyond retail. The goal is not simply to expand distribution, but to embed refills into the digital routines consumers already return to every day, from Alipay to Ant Forest. Built on this mechanism, L’Oréal and Ant Group are working to create a sustainable behaviour pathway that runs from product recognition and purchase incentives to ecological feedback. First, thousands of L’Oréal products have been connected to Ant Group and Tmall’s green certification systems through green packaging and green manufacturing labels. This helps consumers identify more sustainable choices more quickly and earn green energy when purchasing eligible products. Second, L’Oréal and Ant Group launched the long-term “#JoinTheRefillMovement Ant Forest·Refill Forest” project, turning the act of buying refills into a more rewarding interactive experience. After purchasing designated refill products through Ant Forest, users can collect green energy and take part in “Refill Forest” interactions to unlock virtual skins, real-tree adoption opportunities and beauty-related rewards. The first phase of the project, launched from April to June 2026, has attracted about 30 million participants. Finally, the partnership includes a long-term ecological restoration mechanism that extends online green behaviour into offline environmental outcomes. Its first project has already begun in Weichang County, Hebei Province, where 33,000 Chinese pine trees will be planted to protect against wind and sand, restoring 300 mu of desertified land while supporting local biodiversity and desertification control. Sabrina Peng, Chief Sustainability Officer of Ant Group, described the partnership as a win-win. L’Oréal brings green products to the platform, while Ant Group helps those products reach tens of millions of consumers in a warmer, more everyday way, encouraging more people to take part in environmental action. In this sense, buying a refill is no longer just another shopping decision. It becomes part of a fuller green action chain, one that can ultimately connect to ecological restoration in the real world. That makes L’Oréal’s long-term investment in refills more than a single environmental initiative. What the group is trying to build is a model for how sustainable consumption can enter the mainstream market. In the longer term, the logic of L’Oréal’s bet on the “refill economy” is that sustainability cannot remain confined to corporate responsibility or brand image. It has to be embedded in real consumption scenarios, supported by products, content, platforms and user feedback mechanisms that gradually shape greener buying habits. For the beauty industry, the implications are broader. The next stage of competition in sustainable consumption will not be defined only by the scale of a brand’s ambitions, but by its ability to turn those ambitions into consumption mechanisms that are concrete, everyday and appealing enough to be repeated. In other words, sustainable consumption only truly comes alive when it moves beyond consumer approval and becomes a habit of purchase.

From awareness to action: How L’Oréal is unlocking sustainable consumption

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From awareness to action: How L’Oréal is unlocking sustainable consumption

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag