Kosé and Neste roll out bio-based plastic cosmetic containers in “Japan-first”

01 Aug 2024 --- Japanese cosmetics and personal care giant Kosé is collaborating with Neste to reduce the carbon footprint of its plastic night cream containers. The partnership taps Neste’s renewable feedstock, Neste RE, which is made from bio-based materials to replace fossil resources in plastics manufacturing.

The renewable feedstock provider claims the quality, performance and durability of Kosé’s plastic containers remain “unchanged” when integrating Neste RE.

“It’s crucial for us to understand what exactly is required from the brands,” says Maria Carcolé, head of brand owner management at Neste.

“The earlier we do that, the better we can build and support the entire supply chain — and we can also help companies like Kosé get a good understanding of what’s doable and what’s not.” 

Kicking off Japan’s renewables journey
Kosé’s Sekkisei Clear Wellness Overnight Cream packaging is now made with Neste RE, through the Neste collaboration and with the help of supply chain partners Itochu Plastics, SK Geo Centric and Yoshida Cosmeworks.

Kosé’s Sekkisei Clear Wellness Overnight Cream packaging is now made with Neste RE (Image credit: Neste).Kosé made this PP-based inner part of the container the first packaging application in the Japanese cosmetics industry to use renewable materials.

This method applies a mass balancing approach: the amount of renewable materials used at the beginning of the value chain is allocated to a respective amount of the containers.

“The Sekkisei pilot serves as a blueprint for us,” explains Seiji Kawano, general manager at Kosé. “It contributes to reducing the GHG emissions over the life cycle of the product without compromising on quality or performance.”

“The mass balance approach allows us to start with smaller amounts of renewable content that we can then gradually ramp up. And that’s exactly what we have in mind: In the future, we plan to expand the use of renewable materials to other products and brands.”

When Kosé introduced its sustainability ambitions in 2020 — “Creating Beauty in a Sustainable World” — more sustainable plastics made it to the agenda. 

“The plan summarizes our sustainability initiatives and goals up to 2030,” explains Kawano.

 “One of them is reducing the environmental impact of our business. This includes working on reducing the environmental impact of the plastic containers we use.” 

In other activities, Neste and Mitsubishi partnered last month to accelerate Japan’s bio-based plastics production. Japan has set a target to produce approximately 2 million metric tons of plant-based plastics annually by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.