The path from the garbage can to the powder compact was winding. It took the silver skin six years to get into a makeup primer. Silverskin? This is the shell of the coffee beans, which is created as a waste product during roasting. It now conjures up an even, matt complexion on the skin. The Wake up Powder Foundation made a big splash as a trade fair innovation at Cosmoprof in Bologna, the most important meeting point for the beauty industry. Coffee, cosmetics and circular economy – these were the three Cs at the stand of the beauty group Intercos from near Milan, which operates in the B2B business.
The silver skin replaces chemical ingredients previously used in the primer. Coffee waste contains valuable substances that give the powder a perfect consistency with their softening, binding properties. Nature instead of chemicals – this has been a sales-promoting mega trend in the make-up, wrinkle cream and hair care business for years. “The fact that we are now even recycling waste gives us an even greater competitive advantage,” says Renato Semerari, head of the listed manufacturer Intercos with an annual turnover of almost one billion euros.
Sustainability is becoming more and more important in his business. “Our ability to further increase the proportion of natural ingredients is very popular with corporate customers,” says the cosmetics manufacturer. If there is an industry that is massively driven by customers to align their production with environmental and climate protection, it is the beauty industry. After all, cosmetics get under your skin.
Climate protection as a business
Behind the green trend there are high investments in research, because it is not trivial to prepare effective products that are free of controversial synthetic additives. The more difficult this is, the more orders from cosmetics companies end up with Intercos. At the beginning of the week, the company announced that the American label Estée Lauder was transferring the production of the majority of its previously internally produced cosmetic powders to Intercos America. “We also like climate protection for business reasons,” says Semerari with a smile.
Scientists at a Milan university tracked down silver skin in 2018. The breakthrough has now been achieved by a joint team of researchers from Intercos and Amarey, a start-up from the Trieste coffee family Illy, which is dedicated to expanding the circular economy of the well-known espresso brand. By opening up the innovation process, Intercos is now gaining access to competencies that are not related to cosmetics. A new raw material was created from waste: coffee butter. Further applications are being worked on. After all, Italy’s coffee roasters have to dispose of 7,500 tons of silver skin every year.
Intercos is a big player
This is remarkable because Intercos is not a specialist provider of natural cosmetics, but one of the major players on the global beauty market. The company from Agrate Brianza near Milan invents, develops and produces new products and trends for more than 700 customers from all over the world. These include almost all of the top brands of premium cosmetics from Chanel to Clinique as well as a large number of mass market companies. If Intercos changes direction, the industry moves. And vice versa.
When walking through the halls of the cosmetics trade fair in Bologna, the sustainability promises were more noticeable than ever. Green claims, active ingredients from nature, packaging made from recycled materials, resource-saving production facilities determined the picture at the stands of the 3,000 exhibitors from 69 countries. Panel events, seminars, lectures – the topic occupied the experts for four days at the end of March.
The conditions for change are favorable. The mood in the companies is brilliant. In 2023, the cosmetics industry increased its sales by 6.9 percent to 500 billion euros. Annual growth of 7.9 percent is expected by 2027. Companies owe their resilience to vanity. “Wanting to feel young, beautiful and comfortable is human nature,” says Semerari. Intercos achieved an increase in sales of 18.3 percent in 2023. The more depressing the crises and conflicts around the world are, the stronger the need to care for body and soul appears to be.
This is accompanied by the green transformation. Take Italy, for example: brands for natural or sustainable cosmetics have captured 25 percent of the business. 64 percent of new products come to stores with green marketing. Not every company keeps what it promises. There are still no clear and binding rules against greenwashing. But the climate change is making progress in the beauty industry.
The perfumery chain Sephora announced at the end of March that it would expand its “Clean Beauty” label in the future and make it subject to stricter requirements worldwide. Sephora revised its sustainability label with a team of scientists. To qualify, companies must meet at least 32 requirements. This should offer consumers more transparency.
Greenhushing: It’s better to keep quiet before there’s trouble
This is particularly interesting in view of the opposite trend of greenhushing – a widespread tendency among companies to conceal their climate goals. They are reacting to the fact that sustainability marketing is being viewed increasingly critically by the regulatory authorities. As investigations into greenwashing increase, companies are taking more risks if they don’t provide sufficient evidence for their promises. Sephora experienced this too. But in a New York court, the French retail chain, which is part of the luxury group LVMH, prevailed in a class action lawsuit in which the credibility of its “Clean by Sephora” seal was challenged. All the more remarkable that she countered greenhushing and increased her efforts.
This also helps companies that are taking an offensive approach to transformation. Such as Davines, a manufacturer of professional care products for hairdressing salons, cosmetic studios and spas from Parma in central Italy. 18 years ago, Davide Bollati completely strategically realigned his parents’ company and put it on a strict sustainability course. It has been a member of the international sustainability network B Corp since 2016. In the third round of assessment of his progress, Davines received just 123.5 points, putting him above the field of 7500 B Corps worldwide. The average grade of the strict certification was 94.7 points in 2023. Bollati also distinguished himself as the initiator of the B Corp Beauty Coalition, which 89 industry companies have joined.
The Italian also took on the pioneering role for economic reasons. “We are very interested in being a role model,” says the qualified pharmacist at the crowded trade fair stand in Bologna. His company’s sales have doubled to 263 million euros in the past five years. With the hair care brand Davines, Bollati supplies 45,000 hair salons and with the skin care brand comfort zone 5,600 beauty institutes around the world. He has just opened his seventh foreign branch with 22 employees in Düsseldorf.
The green heart beats in the Davines Group Village in Parma. 500 of the 900 employees worldwide work at the company headquarters. 60 of them in the research and development laboratories. There are 17 hectares right next to the village on which the cosmetics manufacturer practices regenerative agriculture and grows organic ingredients. Bollati’s approach is radical: “Today it is not enough for companies to reduce their footprint; they must give more resources back to the planet than they use through a regenerative economy.”
Packaging has the greatest impact on the environment
The entrepreneur approaches his goal through a measurable improvement process. “Our growth is based on our credibility,” says Bollati. The proportion of natural ingredients has increased to 82.7 percent. The active ingredients are not obtained through invasive refining, but rather through sustainable extraction processes. To reduce the use of chemicals, Davines uses steam to clean its production facilities. Since 2018, new products have been subjected to a life cycle assessment in order to select the materials with the best environmental compatibility during their development. With the German mechanical engineering company Olsa, he developed a new production system for shampoo production that reduces water consumption by a quarter. Davines’ certified ratio of packaging weight to product content is 70 percent lower than that of its competitors.
When it comes to packaging, the beauty industry shows its ugliest side. Cosmetics companies have a huge waste problem: According to recycling specialist TerraCycle, 120 billion cosmetic packages are produced every year, most of which ends up in landfills. Marco Occhipinti from the sustainability consultancy Quantis in Milan says: “Packaging causes 70 percent of the environmental impact in the cosmetics industry.”
Bollati has already achieved a lot with eco-design and recycled or renewable raw materials. He also works with the organization Plastic Bank, which fishes one ton of plastic waste from the coastal waters off Brazil, the Philippines and Indonesia for every ton of plastic that the company still needs to fill its products. Davines removes 800 tons of plastic from the ocean every year. At a price per kilo of one euro, that costs 800,000 euros a year. “If all companies took part, the world would be better off,” says Bollati.