Responsible Business

In 1886, our founder David H. McConnell committed his company “to meet fully the obligations of corporate citizenship by contributing to the well-being of society and the environment in which it functions.” Today, these words are still central to our business and our success.

In assessing the impact our company has on the world today, we have identified several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where, through our business model, we can make a unique contribution.

That’s why “being the company for women” is front and centre of our responsible business commitment.

We work to continually reduce our environmental footprint and responsibly manage our global operations and products, and we are committed to tackling deforestation through the work we do on paper and palm oil.

A global stand against animal testing

Our goal is to deliver products to meet our customers’ needs without compromising our commitment to animal welfare, our high product safety standards or our adherence to regulatory requirements. By investing in how we develop innovation for China and in some cases changing distribution channels, we have been able to deliver this landmark change. Globally, none of Avon’s products will be tested on animals.

Reducing carbon emissions

We continue to focus on reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption, as well as increasing the use of renewable energy to reduce our carbon footprint. We aspire to achieve zero emissions by using 100% clean energy.

Water stewardship

We continue to take steps to use water wisely and to conserve this valuable resource, especially in water stressed parts of the world. We continue to implement projects to achieve zero water waste discharge in water-scarce countries where we operate, with especial mention to / especially in our manufacturing sites.

Waste and recovery

We have reduced solid waste and increased recycling rates at manufacturing facilities through programmes that convert waste to energy, reuse wastewater sludge and educate global manufacturing associates on ways to reduce waste.

Sustainable packaging

We use a variety of plastic, glass, paper and cardboard packaging materials for our products. We continue to evaluate opportunities to reduce our impact through packaging by reducing or eliminating unnecessary packaging, using post-consumer recycled materials in primary and secondary packaging and using refills and bio-based packaging resins. Additional initiatives to reduce the impact of packaging include carton elimination, refillable packaging, light weighting and scalability.

Avon paper promise

As a direct seller whose ‘store’ is a brochure and printed materials, with virtually no brick and mortar stores, our business is a significant user of paper. Given this reliance on paper, the issue of deforestation, is especially important to us. We are committed to helping end deforestation, optimising our overall use of paper in every area of our business, including basis weight reductions, reductions in brochure size and increasing the use of digital media as a replacement for paper-based products.