Responsible business
Our responsible business commitment
In 1886, our founder David H. McConnell committed his company "to meet fully the obligations of corporate citizenship by contributing to the well-being of society and the environment in which it functions." Today, these words are still central to our business and our success.
In assessing the impact our company has on the world today, we have identified two of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where, through our business model, we can make a unique contribution. The first is SDG 5: helping to achieve gender equality and empowering women and girls and the second is SDG 8: promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth, full and productive employment and decent work. Moreover, our support for women’s causes, as we educate women to know the signs and know the risks of breast cancer, and our work to help end violence against women and girls, supports SDG 3: ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.
That’s why “being the company for women” is front and centre of our responsible business commitment. We aim to democratise beauty, help women succeed and support causes that matter most to them. We do this whilst working to improve our environmental impact and operating as a company that makes and sells quality, responsibly sourced products, further contributing to many other SDGs in the process.
Women's economic empowerment
We are driving change for women’s economic empowerment by supporting our beauty entrepreneurs to achieve success; providing opportunities, helping build confidence and networks, and enabling them to be successful independent business owners. We take the same approach to advancing women in our business. We strive to attract and retain high performing female talent, as well as fostering an equitable and inclusive workplace.
stand4her: supporting women
stand4her is our plan to improve the lives of 100 million women every year. It is our global response to the barriers still holding women back from reaching their full potential.
It aims to improve the world by advancing their earning potential through the power of beauty, and their ability to live a safe and healthy life.
Improving our environmental impact
We work to continually reduce our environmental footprint and responsibly manage our global operations.
Use the dropdown menu below to find out more about our endeavours to improve our environmental impact, or further details on how we are tackling deforestation specifically.
Operating responsibly
We maintain a high level of integrity throughout our supply chain, the ingredients we use in our products and the health, safety and development of our associates.
Fair for her programme
Fair for Her is a programme to help to improve working conditions for c.250,000 women across our supply chain.
The programme aims to enhance the social procurement programmes already in place to ensure that women working in the third-party factories and fields that supply our products have the best opportunities to advance their careers.
Reporting
We encourage our stakeholders to provide feedback on our corporate responsibility efforts and reporting. Please submit any questions or comments to media@avon.com.