91 SUSTAINABILITY PACKAGING ADDRESSING PLASTIC USE We know that plastic use is among the most pressing sustainability issues today, and we are committed to tackling virgin plastic use and working to minimize plastic waste. We have developed internal plastic guidelines to help drive the reduction of virgin and nonrecyclable plastic in our packaging, products, offices, facilities, and retail spaces. Our guidelines include options such as pursuing more sustainable alternatives to single-use virgin plastic packaging, replacing plastic applicators used in our retail stores with paper or wood versions, reducing plastic water bottles and cutlery in our spaces, and reducing virgin and nonrecyclable plastic used in our visual merchandising. As part of our commitment, we have developed an enterprise- wide goal specific to our virgin-fossil-based plastic. We have also developed a more ambitious goal related to our use of PCR in packaging. Excessive plastic waste in the environment is an issue that extends beyond our own business. In fiscal 2021, The Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation (ELCCF) awarded a grant to Plastics for Change, a nonprofit whose mission is to empower one million informal waste collectors by providing fair market access through its platform. Read more on page 51. PARTNERING TO BRING ADVANCED RECYCLING TO MARKET In fiscal 2021, we entered a partnership with SABIC, a global chemical industry leader, and Albéa, a beauty packaging manufacturer. One of the first projects developed was to bring advanced recycled tube packages to market. Origins is the first prestige beauty brand to leverage SABIC’s advanced recycling technology to produce a tube made from previously difficult-to-recycle, post-consumer mixed plastics material. The brand’s global best-selling mask, Clear Improvement ™ Active Charcoal Mask, is now packaged in a tube composed of a circular polymer resin made using SABIC’s certified circular polyethylene and polypropylene advanced recycling technology. By using this recycling technology, we are helping to drive innovation toward the goal of a circular plastic economy. WHAT IS ADVANCED (CHEMICAL) RECYCLING? Traditional recycling streams for plastics are limited, and plastics can only be recycled a finite number of times. Advanced recycling returns hard-to-recycle plastic back to its basic chemical building blocks. Once the plastic has been broken down to its molecular state, it is then used to create high-performance plastics akin to a virgin material. The use of advanced recycled material is an exciting technological development to support our sustainable packaging goals as this technology widens the scope of application in our packaging portfolio. OUR NEW GOAL In fiscal 2021, we established a new goal that by the end of calendar year 2030, we will reduce the amount of virgin petroleum plastic in our packaging to 50% or less.