Estée Lauder Mission Statement Analysis

Company: The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.
CEO: Fabrizio Freda
Year founded: 1946
Headquarters: Midtown Manhattan, New York, USA
Number of Employees: 62,000
Type: Public
Ticker Symbol: EL
Market Cap (Nov 2024): $25.1 Billion
Annual Revenue (2024): $15.61 Billion
Profit (Net income) (2024): $0.39 Billion

Products & Services: Skin Care | Makeup | Fragrance | Hair Care | Beauty Gifts & Tips

Did you know? ELC’s founder, Estée Lauder, created the first-ever night serum (Night Repair) in 1982. [1]

Estée Lauder is an American multinational cosmetics company founded in 1946 by Joseph and Estée Lauder. The Manhattan-based company manufactures makeup, skincare, perfume, and hair care products. It owns over 20 beauty brands, including MAC, La Mer, Clinique, Bobbi Brown, Aveda, Jo Malone, AERIN, Dr. Jart+, GLAMGLOW, Lab Series, Origins, Darphin Paris, and Smashbox. Each brand aligns with Estée Lauder’s mission statement, ensuring uniformity organization-wide. [2]

Estée Lauder is the world’s second-largest cosmetics company after L’Oréal. Its top-selling product categories are skincare and makeup, while fragrance and hair care contribute around 20% of net sales. The company generated about $16 billion in revenue in 2023 versus $15.6 in 2024. [3]

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To understand Estée Lauder’s secret to success, here is an detailed analysis of its mission statement, principles, values and sustainability goals:

Estée Lauder’s Mission Statement

To bring the best to everyone we touch and to help support the environment in which we live. [4]

Estée Lauder’s mission statement covers four areas: customers, employees, the environment, and communities. It reflects the company’s commitment to product quality and performance, employee empowerment, sustainable operations, and giving back to the community.

Here is our analysis of Estée Lauder’s mission statement:

1. Product quality and performance

Estée Lauder strives to create beauty products that bring the best to consumers. The company is committed to high product quality, safety, efficacy, and sustainability standards. Its production process relies on expert insights across all stages, from ingredient selection and sourcing to formulation and packaging. For example, Estée Lauder uses artisanal-quality ingredients to formulate transformative products that meet diverse beauty needs. [5]

2. People empowerment

Estée Lauder strives to bring the best of its employees. The company aims to inspire, delight, and empower its workers by creating a unique culture of belonging and authentic experience. In Jun 2024, Estée Lauder’s workforce comprised 80% women, with 60% of leadership roles occupied by women. The company launched the Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation (ELCCF) to address systemic challenges and empower people globally. [6]

3. Protect the environment

Estée Lauder supports the environment and operates ethically. The company intends to minimise its environmental impact by reducing emissions and waste, creating more sustainable practices, and improving water efficiency. In April 2023, Estée Lauder updated its climate management framework and introduced sustainability bonuses. These changes can improve Estée Lauder’s sustainability efforts. [7]

4. Support communities

Estée Lauder supports local solutions to help address the intersecting challenges affecting global communities. The company implements this mission through the ELCCF. For example, the ELCCF works with Conservation International to expand its Amazon Indigenous Women’s Fellowship Program. This partnership helps address large-scale deforestation and create sustainable economic opportunities for local communities. [8]

Estée Lauder’s Core Values

Estée Lauder and its brands live by shared values, including generosity, persistence, respect, ethics, and high aesthetic standards. These principles ensure Estée Lauder stays true to its DNA as a family-founded company. They guide the company’s decisions, relationships, and business operations. [9]

Here is an in-depth analysis of Estée Lauder’s core values:

1. Generosity of spirit

Estée Lauder strives to uplift others and improve communities through employee advancement programs and philanthropic initiatives. The company makes financial, product, matching, and in-kind donations across its organization via ELCCF. In 2020, Estée Lauder pledged to award $10 million over three years to support racial and social justice and access to education. [10]

2. Fearless persistence

Estée Lauder insists on advancing equitable access to opportunities, education, and health care globally. This value is inspired by the legacy of Mrs. Estée Lauder, the company’s iconic female founder. She believed that persistence is the key to success, not luck. Estée Lauder strives to honor its founder by advancing possibilities for women globally. Her creativity, resilience, and spirit inspire the company daily. [11]

3. Highest aesthetic standards

Estée Lauder strives to deliver high-quality products. The firm offers elevated and exhilarating beauty without undercutting its sustainability efforts. For example, Estée Lauder changed its Bobbi Brown Intensive Serum Foundation bottle with sustainable materials without undermining the luxury aspect. The subtle changes aligned with the company’s high aesthetic standards and sustainability goals. [12]

4. Respect for the individual

Estée Lauder values and celebrates individuality. The company embraces its workforce’s diverse talents and creates products for all consumers. In 2023, Estée Lauder launched its “My Shade, My Story” campaign. The campaign redefined traditional beauty norms to include everyone with the message: “Every skin shade tells a unique story, and every story is worth celebrating.” [13]

5. Uncompromising quality

Estée Lauder prioritizes product quality and safety. The company creates prestige and luxury products with the best ingredients to meet or exceed the standards of global regulatory, scientific, and governmental bodies. For example, Estée Lauder’s toxicologists and safety experts assess each ingredient before production. [14]

6. Ethics & integrity

Estée Lauder is committed to ethical business operations. The company strives to achieve long-term, sustainable growth ethically and with integrity. This value is enforced by the ELC Human Rights Policy, which applies to all ELC employees, locations, subsidiaries, and joint ventures. Estée Lauder also expects its suppliers to honour human rights in their supply chains and operations. [15]

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Estée Lauder’s Principles & Beliefs

Estée Lauder has several beliefs that guide its business. The company expects all stakeholders to adhere to these principles when representing Estée Lauder. Let’s explore Estée Lauder’s beliefs. [16]

1. Creativity:

Estée Lauder is a pure-play, brand-led prestige cosmetics company. It relies on its creativity and innovative employees to retain industry leadership. For example, Estée Lauder adopted artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize offerings. AI is also helping the company improve agenda preparation, image editing and creation, product imagining, and identifying unmet consumer needs. [17]

2. Entrepreneurial spirit

Estée Lauder believes it is a visionary and changemaker. The firm embraces its entrepreneurial roots and challenges itself to defy expectations in the beauty sector. For example, Estée Lauder’s “My Shade, My Story” campaign redefined traditional beauty norms. “Every skin shade is worth celebrating.”

3. Resilience and legacy

“I never dreamed about success. I worked for it,” said Mrs. Estée Lauder. The founder’s resilience still guides Estée Lauder Companies today. The beauty care giant acknowledges success relies on its ability to anticipate and overcome challenges. As a female-founded company, Estée Lauder protects the legacy of its founder by advancing and supporting women leaders globally. [18]

4. Consumer experience

Estée Lauder strives to deliver exceptional products and customer service. The company enhances the consumer experience by nurturing personal connections and leveraging technologies. In Apr 2024, Estée Lauder and Microsoft partnered to open an AI innovation lab. This lab leverages generative AI tools to help Estée Lauder brands identify product development trends and improve customer experiences. [19]

5. Positive impact

Estée Lauder defines its brands and employees as culture ambassadors and changemakers. The company strives to represent the individuality and diversity of its global consumers. It advocates for women and girls and promotes inclusion, diversity, and equity for all. [20]

Estée Lauder’s Sustainability Goals

Estée Lauder set several sustainability goals in 2018:

Estée Lauder seeks to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 50% by 2030. As of 2024, the company was able to achieve carbon neutrality for its Scope 1 and 2 emissions for five years. [21]
Estée Lauder aims to reduce Scope 3 GHG emissions by 60% per unit revenue by 2030. This sustainability goal focuses on purchased goods and services, transportation and distribution, and business travel. As of 2024, the company had achieved a 21% reduction in Scope 3 emissions.
Estée Lauder aims for 75-100% packaging compliance with the 5 Rs (recyclable, refillable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable) by 2025. [22]
Estée Lauder reduced water withdrawal from direct manufacturing sites by 23%, achieving its 2025 sustainability goal ahead of schedule. [23]

Estée Lauder’s sustainability plan focuses on the climate and environment, working with suppliers, product responsibility, and responsible sourcing. Each category has several sub-categories. How is Estée Lauder progressing on its sustainability goals?

1. Climate and Environment

Estée Lauder seeks to minimize environmental impacts by reducing direct and indirect emissions. It aims to create more sustainable building practices, send nearly zero waste to landfills, and improve water efficiency. In FY 2022, Estée Lauder announced a new goal to transition 100% of its corporate vehicle fleet to electric by 2030. This move will help the company reduce its emissions. [24]

2. Product Responsibility

Estée Lauder strives to embed sustainability throughout its product value chain. This goal covers all production stages, from ingredient selection to formulation and packaging. As of 2024, 71% of Estée Lauder’s packaging was recyclable, refillable, reusable, recycled, or recoverable. The company features over 100 ingredients in its corporate ingredient glossary. [25]

3. Responsible Sourcing

Estée Lauder sources high-quality ingredients and materials from suppliers globally. The firm uses several strategies to ensure responsible sourcing and reduce potential impacts on people and the environment. For example, Estée Lauder collaborates with governments, NGOs, suppliers, and local communities to address systemic challenges and support industry-wide transformation. [26]

4. Working with Suppliers

Estée Lauder recognizes that suppliers help ensure profitable and sustainable growth. However, its diverse supply network exposes the company to several sustainability risks. Estée Lauder mitigates these threats by creating long-term relationships built on a shared dedication to ethics, sustainability, and quality. This goal is inspired by its founder, Mrs. Estée Lauder, who prioritized cultivating and maintaining meaningful company-supplier relationships like “friendships.” [27]

References

Estée Lauder (2022, Aug 18). 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Mrs. Estée Lauder. EstéeLauder.com
The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. Estée Lauder: Our Brands. ELCompanies.com
Petruzzi, D. (2024, Apr 26). Estée Lauder Companies Inc. – statistics & facts. Statista
Estée Lauder Companies. Estée Lauder: Who We Are. EstéeLauder.com
The Estée Lauder Companies (2024). ELC: Ingredient Philosophy. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder (2024, Jun 30). ELC: Women’s Advancement. ELCompanies.com
Michel, M. (2023, Nov 3). Estée Lauder strengthens climate action management as net GHG emissions creep up. CSO Futures
Allure Staff (2023, Mar 12). How The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation Supports Communities Tackling Global Climate Challenges. Allure.com
Estée Lauder Companies. Who We Are: Our Values. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder (2024, Jun). Social Investments: The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder Companies. Estée Lauder, our founder. ELCompanies.com
Katie Pyzyk, K. (2024, Jul 31). Estée Lauder balances luxury and sustainability. ESG Dive
Ye, M. (2023, Oct 23). Estee Lauder’s “My Shade, My Story” Campaign: Exploration of Inclusivity and Beauty Standards. Medium
Estée Lauder Companies. Ingredient and Product Testing and Safety. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder Companies. Viewpoints: Human Rights Policy. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder Companies. Who We Are: Our Beliefs. ELCompanies.com
Hunt, K. (2024, Sep 27). How Estée Lauder is cultivating a new culture of measurement with AI. Consumer Goods
Estée Lauder Companies. Our Impact: Social. ELCompanies.com
McDowell, M. (2024, Apr 26). Estée Lauder Companies forms AI innovation lab. Vogue Business
Estée Lauder Companies. ELC: Our Impact. ELCompanies.com
Mahon, N. (2024, Oct 25). How Has Estée Lauder Raised the Bar on Sustainability and Social Responsibility? Environment Energy Leader
Estée Lauder Companies (2024, Jun). Discover Our Values & Goals Sustainability. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder Companies (2024, Jun 30). ELC: Social Impact & Sustainability Report. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder (2024, Jun). ELC: Climate and Environment. ELCompanies.com
Estée Lauder Companies (2024, Jun 30). Our Impact: Sustainability. ELCompanies.com
EL Companies (2024). ELC: Responsible Sourcing. ELCompanies.com
EL Companies (2024). ELC: Working with our suppliers. ELCompanies.com
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