SPICE launches ecodesign tool for cosmetics packaging

An intuitive tool to accelerate ecodesign innovation across the industry

Quantis and L’Oréal founded SPICE in 2018 with a vision to unite the cosmetics industry around a shared mission: to collectively shape the future of sustainable packaging. Now 25-members strong, the initiative meets regularly and works together to tackle the most pressing issues beauty and personal care companies face while trying to improve the environmental performance of their products’ packaging. One of the biggest challenges: embedding sustainability into the packaging development process. In other words, how to translate environmental footprinting metrics into actionable insights that can be used by packaging engineers to innovate on product designs that are better for the planet?

The SPICE Tool solves this challenge. This intuitive ecodesign tool calculates a holistic environmental footprint for any cosmetics packaging across the full lifecycle (from production to end-of-life), covering 16 environmental indicators that assess impacts on climate change as well as resource depletion, water use, biodiversity and more. The results are aggregated into a single score that supports benchmarking and decision-making.

To truly transform the beauty industry, we made sure the SPICE Tool is: 

• Environmentally robust, based on the comprehensive and science-driven SPICE methodology developed in 2019;
• Easy to use for packaging designers with varied levels of sustainability knowledge; and 
• Available to the whole industry, not exclusively to SPICE members. 

The Free version and Pro version of the SPICE Tool are both available on the SPICE website.

Best practices for determining recyclability and communicating to consumers

Alongside the Tool, SPICE has released best practice materials including a guide on recyclability (a decision tree defining whether or not a packaging is recyclable) and claims guidelines for when companies want to communicate credibly about their packaging’s environmental performance. Accurately communicating about packaging’s environmental attributes can strengthen the positive perception of cosmetic brands. The SPICE Claims Guidelines lay out guidance for how to do that credibly, establishing minimum requirements and strong recommendations for providing packaging sustainability information to consumers and other audiences. 

SPICE is convinced that the best way to go farther, faster on sustainability is by working openly together. The SPICE Tool, best practice materials and SPICE committee meeting notes are all available on Open-SPICE.com.