L’Oréal Australia taps S.A. wind farm to go 100% renewable

The Australian arm of French cosmetics giant L’Oréal is set to be powered by 100% renewable electricity after inking a deal with fellow French-owned company Engie Australia and New Zealand.

The five-year deal will see L’Oréal Australia purchase a mix of renewable energy certificates and power generated by Engie’s 119MW Willogoleche Wind Farm, which kicked off operations in South Australia in late July.

The move to renewables in Australia is part of L’Oréal Group’s global effort to slash its operational emissions – an effort that has so far made impressive progress, with a 77% reduction on 2005 levels reached in 2018, above and beyond the company’s 60% by 2020 goal.

“The move to renewable energy for all of our Australian sites was a 2020 target for us and we’re pleased to achieve this through our partnership with ENGIE before we head into the new decade,” said L’Oréal ANZ’s director of operations, Effie Gorringe, last week.

“There is still more to be done and being a responsible company is our key priority. We are inspired to make change and will continue to work on sustainability initiatives across our entire business.”

For Engie ANZ, which just this week flagged plans to set up a renewable energy investment fund in Australia to bolster development growth in the region, the deal with L’Oréal partnership is one of many future PPAs.

Already, the company has about 1,200MW of “low-carbon” generation capacity and more than 800MW of new renewable energy under development.

“More businesses are seeking affordable green energy and we are proud to be working with L’Oréal to help them achieve their goals through an innovative, long-term power supply agreement,” said Engie ANZ chief Augustin Honorat.