Sustainability is a topic that permeates every German’s life. While financial pressures put a dampener on eco-friendly purchases, it remains a purchase factor for consumers, who already adhere to sustainable practices.
Sustainability in Beauty and Personal Care – Current Landscape
As financial pressures put a strain on consumers, the purchases of eco-friendly products have declined, but the majority of Germans still consider the environment to be a priority.
However, efficacy trumps sustainability. To convince sceptical buyers of efficacy, brands can effectively communicate the benefits of their eco-friendly products by gradually introducing familiar ingredients or features alongside sustainable ones, or go down a personalised product route to ease consumer scepticism.
Furthermore, in order to engage consumers with eco-friendly products, brands can focus on holistic approaches and offer consumers easy ways to act sustainably.
Sustainability in BPC in Germany – Market Statistics
- Consumer Attitudes Towards Sustainability in BPC: 94% of consumers who prioritise the efficacy of beauty and personal care products over eco-friendliness have purchased regular products. This shows that efficacy trumps sustainability as a priority.
- Sustainable Demands in BPC: 48% of buyers prefer a beauty or grooming product with detailed on-pack information about its eco-friendliness over one with less information.
Sustainability in BPC Market Research – What’s Inside?
Key Topics Analysed in this Report
- Types of BPC products purchased and purchase frequency.
- The appeal of information on eco-friendliness on packaging, with short written product claims and a rating scale coming out on top.
- Consumer behaviours relating to knowledge about sustainability and preferences around eco-friendly products.
- Consumer attitudes towards sustainable ingredients and packaging, reducing waste and product usage, and ethical business practices.
- Launch activity and innovation in sustainable beauty and personal care products.
Report Scope
This report explores sustainability in the German beauty and personal care industry. It examines how environmental considerations influence the usage and purchase of beauty, personal care, and grooming products, which include:
Deodorants, facial skincare, fragrances, shaving and hair removal products, hand and body products, including skincare, colour cosmetics, haircare, hair styling products.
Throughout the report, the terms ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly’ and ‘eco-friendly’ are used interchangeably to denote products that are designed to be less harmful to the environment. The report also refers to ‘regular products’, which are defined as those that do not claim to be eco-friendly.
Meet the Expert Behind the Analysis
This report was written by Henrike Philipp, Research Analyst at Mintel. Henrike joined Mintel Germany as an Associate Analyst in 2022 and was promoted to Research Analyst in beauty and personal care in February 2024. Prior to that, she worked in the Translation Team covering German Reports. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Classics from Durham University.
Sustainability has become a consumer expectation. To stand out, brands can focus on personalisation, efficacy, and facilitating easy adoption of eco-friendly habits.
Henrike Philipp
Research Analyst
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
- The five year outlook for sustainability in BPC
- Market context
- Adhere to the legal requirements of the European Green Deal
- Opportunities
- Re-envision premium packaging by catering to consumers’ thirst for information
- Channel efficacy into personalisation to boost eco-friendly products
- Gamify sustainability to make the most of QR codes
- Encourage hesitant consumers to do the ‘next best thing’
- Approach sustainability from a holistic point of view
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MARKET DRIVERS
- The German economy
- 2024 remains challenging
- Graph 1: key economic data, in real terms, 2019-25
- The inflation rate is bouncing back to more conventional levels
- Inflation is still the key factor affecting consumers’ finances…
- …confidence and expenditure
- Graph 2: financial confidence index, 2022-24
- The impact of the economy on sustainability in BPC
- Consider the EU Green Deal and get ahead of new regulations…
- …spanning microplastic…
- …and changes to packaging
- Adapt to social media trends
- Incorporate AI to visualise sustainable efforts
- Green political movements are seeing a slowdown across Europe
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WHAT CONSUMERS WANT AND WHY
- Purchase of eco-friendly products
- Fewer consumers buy eco-friendly products
- Graph 3: purchase of eco-friendly products, 2022 vs 2024
- SBS has seen the biggest reduction out of all categories
- Women tend to exhibit more eco-friendly purchases
- Eco-friendly purchases decline as consumers age
- Graph 4: purchase of regular vs eco-friendly BPC products, by age, 2024
- Eco-friendly fragrances and makeup have seen an uptick in purchases
- Fragrances and makeup can score with eco-friendly packaging
- Frequency of purchase
- Most Germans claim to have bought the same amount of eco-friendly BPC products
- The threshold to eco-friendliness is smaller for people who already buy eco-friendly products
- Motivate older consumers to change their behaviour
- Graph 5: frequency of purchase of eco-friendly beauty/grooming products, by age, 2024
- Price is still an issue for sustainability
- Support consumers to make their beauty routine more eco-friendly
- Graph 6: agreement with “I could do more to make my beauty/grooming routine more eco-friendly”, 2024
- Encourage consumers to just do their best rather than strive for excellence
- The appeal of eco-friendliness information on product packaging
- Details on product packaging are important to consumers
- Premium brands can go against the current with new packaging strategies
- Consumers seek support on pack when looking for sustainability information
- Graph 7: appeal of eco-friendliness information on packaging, 2024
- Direct short written product claims towards women over 55
- Use familiarity with Nutri-Score in approaches to sustainability rating scales in beauty
- Demystify certification labels to increase engagement
- Most consumers hesitate to use QR codes
- Target parents with detailed information on sustainability
- Knowledge about sustainability
- Parents are familiar with ingredients
- Graph 8: behaviours towards sustainability in BPC, 2024
- Transform the ‘clean beauty’ trend to tap into personal and planetary health
- QR codes could help give additional information for consumers who want to do DIY instead of buying a product
- Target parents with kits to make eco-friendly products at home
- Preferences
- Change the perception that eco-friendly products don’t smell good
- Graph 9: agreement with “It’s more important to me that a beauty/grooming product smells good than how eco-friendly it is”, 2024
- Efficacy is what leads people to regular products…
- …meaning eco-friendly brands must prove their efficacy
- Sustainable ingredients and packaging
- Plant-based is seen as eco-friendly by consumers
- Graph 10: attitudes towards sustainability relating to eco-friendliness, 2024
- Go beyond recycled materials to stand out from the crowd
- Reduce packaging with concentrates, recycled plastic and alternative formats
- Reducing waste
- Consumers consider the reduction of packaging to be sustainable
- Graph 11: attitudes towards sustainability relating to reducing waste, 2024
- A reduction of product usage is important to consumers across ages
- Highlight the efficacy of personalised products to appeal to all BPC buyers
- Target tech-savvy consumers through the gamification of sustainability
- Push solids to gain momentum again…
- …and focus on offering them as an alternative to reducing product usage
- Get inspired by EU’s Deep Purple project that uses biowaste for cosmetic formulations
- Ethical business practices
- Vegan claims are well established but still important
- Graph 12: attitudes towards sustainability in BPC relating to ethical business practices, 2024
- Brands can also go via the human approach
- Greenwashing needs to be tackled, but avoid slipping into ‘greenhushing’
- Offsetting procedures are met with ambivalence
- Graph 13: attitudes towards sustainability in BPC, 2024
- Large brands can look to smaller brands and transparency to improve their eco-friendly image
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LAUNCH ACTIVITY AND INNOVATION
- Environmental claims are still on the rise
- Graph 14: launches with ethical/environmental claims in BPC, 2019-24
- All categories have a strong presence of eco/ethical claims
- Graph 15: total vs environmental/ethical launches in BPC, by category, 2023-24
- Refills are still a hot topic, especially in colour cosmetics
- Graph 16: launch types in colour cosmetics with refill/refillable claims, 2021-24
- Luxury goes sustainable
- Graph 17: launches with ethical/environmental claims, by ultimate company, 2023-24
- A new Gucci fragrance features carbon-captured ethanol
- Environmentally friendly packaging claims are strongest in colour cosmetics
- Graph 18: launches with environmentally friendly packaging, by category, 2021-24
- dm revamps its packaging to save plastic…
- …and uses carbon dioxide recycling to create packaging
- Use plant-based fibres for packaging
- Consider giving back to the environment
- Eco-friendly ink is on the rise in Europe
- Graph 19: BPC launches with eco-friendly ink on packaging, 2020-23
- Sell surplus products through anti-waste packages and save the environment at the same time
- Blue beauty: focus on the impact on water resources and using algae as material
- Ethical – human claims are on the rise
- Advertising and marketing activity
- Collaborate with fashion brands and events to promote sustainability
- Don’t Rebuy, Just Refill
- Consider sustainability when launching pop-up stores
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APPENDIX
- Appendix – products covered, abbreviations, consumer research methodology and language usage
- Products covered in this Report
- Abbreviations
- Consumer research methodology
- CHAID analysis
- CHAID – tree output
- A note on language
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