Live from Sustainable Cosmetics Summit

"We are sticking to our green guns," said Susan Arnot Heaney of Avon, naming water as the name if the game. "Water is what's going to make or break our green future," she added. Among its other green initiatives (including its largest challenge—packaging), Avon has reduced its total water consumption at its manufacturing facilities by 27 percent. The company's palm and paper promises are just two ways it is working to fight deforestation and restore tropical forests in Indonesia and Brazil.

Sustainability isn't easy; it is a constant evolution of green change and adjustments. A company's work is never done and all the way up the supply chain, it's important to create green partnerships. Heaney highlighted Croda's recent squaline development, which has always been sourced from whales, but the company found a way to source it from olives. "If that's not a green partnership what is?" she noted.

Denise Alves from Natura Cosmetics broke down the Brazilian company's carbon management into three parts:

1. Inventory: measuring and recording emissions.
2. Reduction: action and processes to reduce greenhouse gases.
3. Offsetting: neutralizing emissions that could not be avoided.

Interestingly, Toby A.A. Heaps, Corporate Knights, said Natura Cosmetics was number two on the Global 100 list of the world's most sustainable corporations. As he outlined the methodology and ranking criteria the company uses for its list, he noted the metrics used—resource, financial and employee management—include taxes. "Many companies take an aggressive posture on taxes [often outsourcing production to avoid paying taxes], which will cost their stakeholders down the line, as many governments are cutting back and becoming more austere in their spending, looking for loopholes in corporate accounting," he said. What's a common denominator with leading sustainable corporations? "Leading from the top," Heaps said, i.e., CEOs and chairmen leading the way from the top down.