Fragrance ingredients: What are the environmental assessment challenges?

After several months of collaborative work, exchanges and methodological questioning, a scientific article co-authored by L'Oréal, MANE and EVEA has been published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Green Chemistry Journal. At EVEA, Kévin Lafaye and Yves Gerand were invited to contribute.

In September 2021, L'Oréal and MANE approached EVEA to showcase their work on the environmental assessment of fragrance ingredients.

This collaborative effort reveals the diverse environmental profiles of fragrance ingredients. It also highlights two tools:

• GREEN MOTION®, a decision-making tool based on the principles of green chemistry and developed by MANE
• SPOT, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool deployed internally by L'Oréal

Additionally, this publication demonstrates that biobased materials do not always result in a reduction in environmental impact compared to fossil-based materials. Indeed, their impact depends significantly on agricultural practices and the extraction processes used to obtain the molecule of interest.

Ultimately, the two tools studied, GREEN MOTION® and LCA, complement each other. They present similar trends but are tailored to different phases of the product development process:

• GREEN MOTION® assists in guiding eco-design choices made early in the process
• LCA can complement the approach (based on information available later in the process) to validate the environmental benefits of the developed product

Special thanks to Patricia Martz and Jacques Lharidon of l'Oréal, and to Tony Phan and Cyril Gallardo of MANE for their confidence in our Green Chemistry team.

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