NATURAL
COSMETICS
A choice of 100
COSMOS-approved
products
Translation of
consumer needs into
ingredients
and
formulations
ORAL CARE
Promising R&D
pipeline in oral care
photos: BASF, taffpixture (palm oil), Shutterstock.com
range with tailored business
models and sales channels. Our
recent customer survey also
shows that we have by far the
best access to the market and to
our customers. What they value
most is our market approach: de-
veloping solutions derived from
the needs of consumers, translat-
ed into ingredients and formula-
tions with scientifically-proven
performance and validated mar-
keting claims. And what many of
them don’t know: with more than
100 Cosmos-approved products*
,
BASF is also the largest provider
of ingredients for natural cosmet-
ics. What is more, according to
our Palm Progress Report, we of-
fer the most comprehensive port-
folio based on RSPO-certified sus-
tainable palm kernel oil, which
enables our customers to create
entire formulations based on
Mass Balance-certified ingredi-
ents.
What new research is on your
company’s horizon, particular-
ly in the area of active ingredi-
ents?
There are two main fields that
will drive product development,
particularly for our active ingredi-
ents, within the next several
years: skin microbiota and epige-
netics. To further explore them,
we engaged in partnerships with
experts from public and private
research institutes and estab-
lished two interdisciplinary inno-
vation platforms.
The first one will explore the role
of
microbiota
in a healthy skin
barrier. We want to better under-
stand the role of each microor-
ganism in skin beauty and build
new skin models to study effects
of active ingredients. To this end,
we reinforced our research facili-
ties in Lyon. One of the first
achievements has been creating
newly-engineered skin models
embedded with bacteria, which
allow researchers to explore the
interactions between active in-
gredients and skin microflora.
With the second innovation plat-
form on
epigenetics,
we explore
how changes to our genes caused
by the chronological ageing pro-
cess or environmental factors can
be mapped and precisely con-
trolled. Our goal is to understand
how individual lifestyles influ-
ence the conditions and needs of
human skin, and to develop in-
gredients that are capable of stim-
ulating the activity of genes that
have an influence on the longevi-
ty of the skin. In the coming
years, we intend to develop and
market several active ingredients
for cosmetic products using the
findings of these two platforms.
In 2012, BASF was among the
first companies to launch
RSPO-certified ingredients.
Where are you now?
Today, our global portfolio com-
prises more than
120 personal
care ingredients
based on
RSPO-certified sustainable palm
kernel oil – covering all relevant
functionalities from surfactants,
emulsifiers and emollients to li-
pid layer enhancers, pearlising
agents and many more. Most of
our customers are large interna-
tional and regional brand manu-
facturers as well as retail produc-
ers committed to sustainable
palm. The majority of them are
switching from conventional to
Mass Balance-certified ingredi-
ents.
During the past year, we man-
aged to almost double our sales
with ingredients based on
RSPO-certified sustainable palm
kernel oil. Our goal is to convert
further parts of the portfolio to
Mass Balance-certified. However,
passing on the extra costs to the
market remains difficult. In order
to ensure a physical transforma-
tion towards sustainable palm,
the entire value chain needs to
contribute.
Your palm business is based on
a self-commitment and new
goals for procuring palm oil
products. What have you
achieved so far?
The good news is, we increased
our purchasing volume of
RSPO-certified sustainable palm
kernel oil up to 158,000 metric
tons. In 2016, more than 56% of
the palm kernel oil we bought
was RSPO-certified and traceable
back to the oil mill level. In addi-
tion, we have expanded our glob-
al network of certified sites. In to-
tal, 19 BASF production sites in
Asia, Europe, North and South
America are now RSPO-certified.
And we will continue our path
forward. We will be sharing our
progress in transforming the mar-
ket in our first
Palm Progress Re-
port
presented at
In-Cosmetics
in
London, see page 12 pp.
What are your next steps on the
journey to sustainable palm oil?
We are convinced that all players
along the value chain, including
BASF, need to contribute to trans-
form the market towards responsi-
ble palm. To this end, we are
working closely with our partners
in the supply chain. We continu-
ously expand our expertise and
share our knowledge with the
market to support our customers
on this journey. To deepen the un-
derstanding of palm-based
oleo-derivatives, we offer web
conferences and symposia. For ex-
ample, at this year’s In-Cosmetics
in London, we will host our
Sec-
ond Palm Dialog
. This is an excel-
lent opportunity for all market
players along the value chain to
discuss hurdles and pain points
and listen to expert insights.
What will you be presenting at
this year’s In-Cosmetics in Lon-
don?
Of course, you shouldn’t miss our
booth and our invite to the Sec-
ond Palm Dialog. In London, we
will demonstrate the three “Di-
mensions of Science” that all of
our Care Creations solutions are
EPIGENETICS
The aim is to
control changes to
our genes
PERSONALITIES & PROFILES
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