Sephora Planet Aware: What the Seal Requires

What Planet Aware is

Planet Aware is Sephora's most rigorous sustainability seal. Sephora built it with external environmental and scientific experts over two years. The standard sits across four pillars and 32 mandatory criteria.

The four pillars:

1. Sustainable Ingredient Sourcing & Formula
2. Sustainable Packaging
3. Corporate Commitments & Practices
4. Consumer Information & Environmental Labeling
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A brand has to meet every mandatory criterion (Must-Have) across all four pillars to qualify. The program also has Additional criteria, where a brand picks a target number to hit, but the Must-Haves are the gating bar.

Pillars 1 and 2 are largely operational: The brand decides which ingredients to use, how to source palm oil and mica, how to design packaging, and what recycled content to include. These decisions sit inside the brand's existing supply chain and formulation teams.

Pillars 3 and 4 are where the work changes shape, and where a brand might not have the operational ability to meet the requirements internally.

Where most brands hit a wall: Pillar 3's carbon Must-Haves

Pillar 3 covers Corporate Commitments & Practices. It includes operational items like supplier audits and energy use, but the Must-Haves under this pillar are carbon-measurement requirements:
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   - All brands: have calculated Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

   - Large brands (large independents and brands within large multi-brand parent companies): have also calculated Scope 3 emissions.

   - Large brands: have set reduction targets for at least Scope 1 and 2, with a planned date for Scope 3 targets, verified by a third party.
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Calculating Scope 1 and 2 is reasonably contained. Scope 1 is direct emissions from owned operations. Scope 2 is purchased electricity. A beauty brand with a small footprint might be able to pull these from energy bills and facility data, but there’s still the matter of translating how much energy you purchase into how much emissions you generate.

Scope 3 is where the lift gets even heavier. Scope 3 is emissions from everything else: ingredients, packaging materials, manufacturing done by contract manufacturers, distribution, retail energy, consumer use, and end-of-life. For most beauty brands, Scope 3 accounts for the majority of the footprint, often more than 90%. It is also the category Sephora is asking large brands to measure.

Building a credible Scope 3 inventory means going line by line through the supply chain. Every ingredient. Every packaging component. Every step of production. Most beauty teams cannot do this in-house. The data sits with suppliers. The methodology has to follow the GHG Protocol's Corporate Standard and Scope 3 Standard

And after all of this measurement, for large companies, the pillar also requires setting carbon reduction targets.

Traditional sustainability consultancies typically deliver a Scope Inventory that meets these requirements in six to nine months, at high five-figure budgets, with a slide deck at the end.

Pillar 4's environmental disclosure piece

Pillar 4 is Consumer Information & Environmental Labeling. The Must-Haves here are different from Pillar 3.

A brand must provide consumers at least two of eight types of environmental information. The eight are:

1. Ingredient traceability
2. Environmental scoring (a synthetic environmental impact score)
3. Carbon emissions
4. Packaging materials
5. Production location
6. Sustainable material content (recycled or biobased)
7. Certifications
8. Recycling instructions

A brand must also provide recycling instructions on every SKU.

Carbon emissions is one of the eight disclosure types Sephora lists. A brand can satisfy Pillar 4 by disclosing, say, ingredient traceability and recycling instructions, without any carbon labeling at all. However, the criteria do note that brands should be working toward all eight over time, so carbon disclosure is on the trajectory and may become a requirement in future years, even when it is not mandatory at qualification.

The implication for a brand pursuing Planet Aware: Pillar 4 is about which disclosures the brand chooses to publish to consumers. Some of those choices (ingredient traceability, production location) sit inside the brand. The carbon emissions disclosure depends on product-level carbon data, which most brands build alongside their Pillar 3 corporate inventory rather than separately.

Why this matters to customers

Customers actively look for sustainability credentials when they shop beauty. ClimatePartner reports that 65% of Millennial and Gen Z consumers are willing to pay more for eco-conscious products, 87% research a brand's sustainability credentials before purchasing, and 68% rely on trusted third-party certifications to identify clean and sustainable products.

Planet Aware is that third-party signal. Sephora sets the criteria. Sephora reviews the work. A brand earns the seal by passing those reviews.

For the brand, the seal turns sustainability work into a visible asset on Sephora's site, on product photos, and in the customer's decision moment.

Where Planet FWD fits

Planet FWD delivers the carbon Must-Haves under Pillar 3, and supports Pillar 4 with the product-level carbon data that lets a brand offer carbon disclosure to consumers.

For Pillar 3:

• - Corporate carbon inventory across Scope 1, 2, and 3, calculated using GHG Protocol-aligned methodology with documented system boundaries.
• - Target setting and the methodology that holds up to third-party verification.
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For Pillar 4:

• - Product Carbon Footprints conformant with PACT v3, the cross-industry methodology standard used for retailer scorecards. These give a brand the carbon disclosure for its SKUs, which is one of the eight   qualifying Pillar 4 information types.

The reason a brand might pick a software platform over a traditional consultancy here is speed and reusability. The carbon Must-Haves are delivered in roughly eight weeks rather than six to nine months, anchored by an ingredient and materials database broad enough to handle what beauty brands formulate with. That same database is what makes activity-based Scope 3 measurable at the ingredient level. And the data is reusable. The same data infrastructure serves CDP reporting, SBTi target submissions, B Corp recertification, SB 253 disclosure, EPR compliance, and R&D decisions through comparison LCAs that inform reformulation and packaging changes before launch. One build, multiple use cases.

Doing it well

Two things separate a Planet Aware-ready carbon program from a check-the-box exercise.

First, primary supplier data for the categories that drive the footprint. For most beauty products, that means ingredients and packaging. Secondary emissions factors (industry averages) work for the long tail of spend, but the 10 to 20% of spend that drives the majority of emissions deserves direct supplier data. Verifiers expect to see it.

Second, documented system boundaries and methodology choices. The GHG Protocol gives brands flexibility on cut-off rules, allocation methods, and category inclusions. Whichever choices a brand makes, they have to be documented and consistent. A third-party reviewer will check them.

Sephora's Planet Aware standard is what it is, in part, because Sephora built it independently with external experts. The credibility of the seal travels back to the brand that earns it.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sephora Planet Aware? Planet Aware is Sephora's highest-bar sustainability seal, launched in April 2024. It sits across four pillars and 32 mandatory criteria covering ingredient sourcing, packaging, corporate carbon commitments, and consumer environmental information. Around 25 brands carry the seal today.

How does a brand qualify for Planet Aware? A brand must meet every mandatory criterion (Must-Have) across all four pillars. The criteria were developed by Sephora with external environmental and scientific experts over two years. Brands also pick a target number of Additional criteria to meet, but the Must-Haves are the gating bar.

What carbon data does Planet Aware require? All brands must have calculated Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. Large brands (large independents and brands within large multi-brand parent companies) must also have calculated Scope 3 emissions, plus third-party-verified reduction targets for at least Scope 1 and 2, with a planned date for Scope 3 targets.

Is product carbon labeling required for Planet Aware? No. Product carbon labeling is one of eight environmental information types under Pillar 4. A brand must disclose at least two of the eight to consumers. The criteria say brands should be working toward all eight over time, so carbon disclosure is on the trajectory even when it is not mandatory at qualification.

How long does Planet Aware preparation take? The carbon Must-Haves under Pillar 3 typically take six to nine months through a traditional sustainability consultancy. Planet FWD delivers the same scope in roughly eight weeks. Total preparation time depends on how much of the operational work (Pillars 1 and 2) the brand has already done.

How does Planet FWD support a Planet Aware application? Planet FWD delivers the Pillar 3 carbon Must-Haves: Scope 1-3 corporate inventory, GHG Protocol-aligned methodology, and target setting that holds up to third-party verification. Planet FWD also provides Product Carbon Footprints conformant with PACT v3, which gives a brand the carbon-emissions disclosure option under Pillar 4.

‍Where to start

For brands considering Planet Aware, the first step is usually a 30-minute working session: where the brand's carbon data stands today, what Pillar 3 will require given the brand's size and ownership structure, and a realistic timeline before submission. We do this with beauty brands across categories and price points. No deck. No pitch.

Book a 30-minute scoping call

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