L’Oréal is accelerating the commercialization of renewable and biodegradable materials, sustainable packaging, and circular resource-use models. The group invests more than $1.5 billion each year in research and expansion, with a goal of sourcing 75 percent of its ingredients from plants, minerals, and recycled materials by 2030.
The company is also committing nearly $120 million to external innovation through L’Accelerator, a five-year program that supports early-stage entrepreneurs developing commercialization-ready technologies aligned with L’Oréal’s climate, nature, and circular resource objectives.
L’Oreal has chosen 13 companies for the first phase of the program, which kicked off in mid-January. It hasn’t revealed how much funding is allocated to participants but has outlined strategies to work with five annual cohorts throughout the lifetime of the program.
Entrepreneurs take part in a 12-week program at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, gaining practical training in investor pitching, scaling sales, financial planning, budgeting, and negotiation. They then work with L’Oréal brands on six- to nine-month real-world pilot projects.
L’Accelerator supports companies with market-ready solutions that require additional resources to scale commercially, providing management coaching, funding, and corporate pilot opportunities, according to L’Oréal Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer Ezgi Barcenas.
“We’re really seeking what I would call later-stage companies that are actually at an inflection point,” she expressed. “They’ve formed a product, and they’re really looking for a consumer to come in to design that product or put it into a use case, an application for that customer.”
Each L’Accelerator relationship will be accomplished by an internal sponsor selected from teams across the company comprising the supply chain organization, brand managers, R&D, and finance, Barcenas expressed. Ten of the 13 companies selected for the first L’Accelerator cohort are developing sustainable packaging and resource substitutes, counting Pulpex, which is working on recyclable paper bottles.
Pulpex is a venture spun out of the adult beverage business Diageo, which has been testing fiber-based substitutes to glass and plastic bottles.
23 January 2026
23 January 2026
23 January 2026
23 January 2026