European cosmetics are worth 180 billion GDP

It contributes EUR 180 billion to the EU's GDP, or EUR 496 million generated every day, and supports almost 3.2 million jobs including allied industries (direct jobs number 2 million). EU companies producing beauty and personal care products export goods worth 26 billion, making the EU-27 the world's largest cosmetics exporter. This is the picture taken by "The value of beauty" a study conducted by Oxford Economics for The value of beauty alliance (see article below) according to which the EU beauty and personal care industry continues to grow and to be a global leader supported by science, creativity and innovation thanks to the presence of some of the world's largest cosmetics groups such as the French L'Oréal, Lvmh and Coty and the German Beiersdorf.

The push for innovation

The force that sustains and drives the sector is innovation with R&D expenditure exceeding EUR 2 billion - with manufacturing companies in the lead (92%) - and growth of 30% in almost ten years. Just to give an example, in the field of skin technology where R&D is crucial a quarter of the cosmetics produced in the EU each year are new or improved: the large groups reformulate up to 30% of their products and introduce around eighty new ingredients annually compared to 22 for smaller companies.

Innovation is also a key skill in demand in employment, where there is a 2.4 per cent rate against the European average of 0.7 per cent of R&D-related roles: among the most in-demand professions are chemists (25 per cent), laboratory technicians and analysts (24 per cent), laboratory and research managers (17 per cent), who take up two-thirds of the job vacancies. Digitalisation is another key aspect for the development of companies that, in order to be competitive, must study trends to anticipate consumer tastes quickly: artificial intelligence and augmented reality play a decisive role in marketing technologies. But that is not all. To better connect with consumers, several companies have developed specific information platforms. For three years now, more than seventy companies have contributed to EcoBeautyScore, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the development of a standardised and transparent system for assessing and scoring the environmental impact of cosmetic products, demonstrating the industry's commitment to change through consumer awareness of sustainability. And a further example of how technology can be applied to provide consumers with useful information to find the right products for different needs.

Sustainable commitment