PARIS – L’Oréal has revealed the second cohort joining L’AcceleratOR, the group’s sustainable innovation program.

Launched in January, it has a 100-million-euro endowment to identify, pilot and scale future sustainable solutions from startups and small and medium-size companies to solve the urgent challenges facing the climate, nature and circularity.

“This has been a very exciting process for us as we went through the first cohort selection process and now the pilots are underway,” said Ezgi Barcenas, chief corporate responsibility officer at L’Oréal, adding those should be wrapping up before year-end. “In the meantime, we are excited to welcome the second cohort.”

The new cohort is of 13 companies from eight countries, including five new ones – India, China, Germany, Italy and Finland – from in the first cohort. The second round of companies address more challenges, including water technology, as well.

They include in the next-generation packaging and materials section: Arda Biomaterials, Bormioli Luigi, Auressens and Newlight Technologies.

Auressens, which was founded in 2020, develops metal-free, recyclable reflective, organic pigments for packaging.

“Auressens is at exactly the right stage for this program,” said Grégory Dupyere, a cofounder and chief executive officer of the company. “We have spent several years developing the technology and are now moving from scientific and technical validation towards industrialization and market applications. So, L’AcceleratOR gives us an exceptional opportunity to explore the next step together with L’Oréal and CISL.”

Bioweg and Envision Energy comprise the innovative ingredients and formulas section. While Without, HCpect, MacroCycle, Nexus, Uphead Solutions Oy and Laminar make up the advanced industrial section, and Waterplan enters the data intelligence section.

“We’ve been really happy with the application process in the second cycle,” Barcenas said, calling the quality of applicants “incredible.” “The intent of the program from the beginning was to be transparent about the challenges that we have across several different areas and what we’re looking to solve for. The more we’re putting out there those challenges in a transparent way, and the more we’re intentional with the solutions we’re looking for, we are definitely seeing that we’re attracting the right group of companies, the high-quality applications around the world.”

Nearly 850 applications were received for the second cohort.

“The process was really tough to select this group of 13 companies,” Barcenas said. “But in a way, it’s also an opportunity for us to look and evaluate what solutions are out there, to give feedback to some of the companies, as well, about what more we are looking for, so that we can see it in the future how they may be part of a future cohort, as well.”

“We’re excited to welcome the second cohort in the L’AcceleratOR program after many months of careful selection to find commercially relevant solutions in target geographies internationally,” said James Cole, chief innovation officer at CISL, in a statement.

The second cohort members are all to become part of the intensive acceleration phase that’s steered by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership innovation team, with a concentration on pilot readiness. The companies can tap into L’Oréal’s global resources to launch pilot projects over six to nine months. Their solutions could potentially be scaled across the company’s operations globally.

Barcenas noted the cohorts’ geographic representation is a testament to the reach and scale of L’Oréal. “And how we are paving the way to not only identify these solutions, but to also work with them side-by-side and see how we can quickly bring them to market,” Barcenas said. “That really is the ultimate aim.”

She said the first cohort pilot process is going very well.

“We have seen a huge mobilization within the company,” Barcenas said. Teams came together from the likes of sourcing to operation, manufacturing, brands and divisions.

“We are uniting the whole value chain, all the way from upstream sourcing to product design to what it means for the consumer,” Barcenas said, explaining this allows the topic to be elevated and also brings quicker decisions and alignment on what L’Oréal is solving for and what success looks like. “Then at the end of the pilot, we can quickly make decisions again in how we’re bringing them to scale.”

There is a new docuseries, called “Entering L’AcceleratOR,” which follows the path of three companies in the first cohort. It is being shown on L’Oréal’s YouTube channel.

“The docuseries is really a way for us to tell those stories about the intent, the objective of the program, but also what it takes to pilot and test these solutions,” Barcenas said.