The Beauty of Recycling: Watsons Launches Regionwide Recycling Programme with L’Oréal

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach - 6 June 2022 - In celebration of World Environment Day, A.S. Watson Group's flagship health and beauty brand Watsons is extending its regionwide recycling programme to Hong Kong.

This rides on the hugely successful launch of recycling programmes in Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Watsons understands that its responsibility towards the environment goes beyond the product range. Inspiring behavioural change amongst its customers is of utmost importance to help create a more sustainable world. As such, Watsons has rolled out a regionwide recycling programme with L'Oréal.

In Taiwan, Watsons has worked with Maybelline to set up recycling bins in stores. For every empty bottle that is recycled, Maybelline will make donation to Re-Think to run sustainability education programmes. Meanwhile in Thailand, Watsons' customers can recycle their PET plastic bottles at the Garnier Refund Machine in selected stores and earn a free Garnier Pink Micellar Water; while in Indonesia, Watsons has launched a recycling programme with Garnier to encourage customers to recycle plastic bottles at Watsons stores.

To further widen its sustainability impact, the regionwide recycling programme has now been extended to the fourth market, Hong Kong. To accelerate its sustainability endeavors, Watsons Hong Kong has partnered with L'Oréal to roll out the 'Beauty for the Future' recycling campaign. From now on, customers can recycle the cleaned containers of any beauty brand, including foundation bottles, mascara wands, skincare tubs, and lipstick tubes at around 170 Watsons stores across the city in exchange for rewards in the city's largest loyalty platform MoneyBack.

Once collected, V Cycle will break down the wastes, separate them by materials, and work with local partners to transform them into new raw materials. The scaled-up campaign goal is to collect 250,000 containers in the 12 months following the official launch, which is equivalent to the height of two Mount Everests when stacked up[1].

"Pre-loved beauty packages have their place, but that place is not in landfills. Our goal is to meet it head-on with the first cross-brand recycling programme involving 18 of our beauty brands in 2021. Today, we are thrilled to work with partners along the value chain to expand the programme and positively impact people's lives while preserving the planet," said Eva Yu, President & Managing Director of L'Oréal Hong Kong. "With the scaled-up recycling campaign as part of our 'L'Oréal for the Future' sustainability programme, we want to further inspire and influence how our consumers think and what they do about packaging wastes – not as something to toss out, but as a resource that can be recycled and used again, and sustainably, reducing the impact on our environment. Our partnership with Watsons and V Cycle will help make this a reality."

"At Watsons, we believe Going Green is The New Beautiful. We made it our purpose to do the right things for our customers and the planet. Sharing a common sustainability vision with L'Oréal, we appreciate this Beauty of Recycling partnership in the region to educate customers as well as engage them in action so that together we can create a bigger impact to the planet today and tomorrow," said Malina Ngai, CEO of A.S. Watson (Asia and Europe).

About Watsons

Watsons is the leading O+O (Offline plus Online) health and beauty retailer in Asia, currently operating over 8,000 stores and more than 1,500 pharmacies in 16 Asian and European markets. Watsons continually sets the standards in the health, wellness and beauty market, providing personalised advice and counselling in health, beauty and personal care on top of its market-leading product range, making customers LOOK GOOD, DO GOOD, FEEL GREAT every day. Since 2009, Watsons has been the No.1 pharmacy/ drugstore brand in Asia*. Watsons is the flagship health and beauty brand of A.S. Watson Group.

*Campaign Asia-Pacific "Asia's Top 1,000 Brands" survey of over 8,000 respondents across 14 markets in Asia Pacific Region

About A.S. Watson Group
Established in 1841, A.S. Watson Group is the world's largest international health and beauty retailer operating over 16,400 stores under 12 retail brands in 29 markets, with about 130,000 employees worldwide. For the fiscal year 2021, A.S. Watson Group recorded revenue of US$22 billion. Every year, we are serving over 5.5 billion shoppers via our O+O (Offline plus Online) platforms, providing tech-enabled retail experience to customers offline and online.

A.S. Watson Group is also a member of the world-renowned multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, which has four core businesses ‐ ports and related services, retail, infrastructure and telecommunications in over 50 countries.

A.S. Watson Group has launched a Greener Stores Global Framework to accelerate the transformation of retail towards lower-environmental impact stores to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions, water usage and landfill waste as well as leverage its scale for good to speed up the global movement towards a more sustainable future. The A.S. Watson Greener Stores Global Framework aims to forge and inspire its businesses to build a stronger sustainability culture and practice in the way it designs, constructs, operates and maintains its stores.

Please visit www.aswatson.com/our-company/o-and-o-strategy/ for more information.


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