lundi 10 août 2026

TRACE: Revolutionizing Sustainable Traceability in Luxury and Cosmetics

Edition Spéciale by LUXE PACK

Discover how TRACE brings together 18 players from the luxury and cosmetics industries to build sustainable, transparent traceability aligned with new European regulations, making collective solidarity the driving force behind a more responsible value chain.

Sustainable traceability has become a major priority for the luxury and cosmetics sectors, which now face unprecedented environmental and regulatory requirements. Given the scale of global challenges, limited resources, tight deadlines and increasingly complex value chains, isolated initiatives are structurally reaching their limits. Born from the vision of the House of Chanel and now bringing together an ecosystem of eighteen leading brands and suppliers, the TRACE consortium is setting a new standard of excellence. By pooling expertise, data and collective priorities, the group demonstrates that collaboration between companies and suppliers is key to building resilient supply chains. Each member of the consortium commits to specific rights and obligations, in a spirit of cooperation that goes beyond competitive considerations.

The transformation of business models towards full transparency can no longer rely on statements of intent alone. It requires cross-industry collaboration capable of addressing social and environmental challenges at their source. The TRACE consortium is part of this transformative movement, where competition gives way to a higher common objective: ensuring the long-term viability of responsible value chains and compliance with future standards. Through this collective approach, the beauty sector is not simply adapting, it is becoming a driving force for systemic transformation across the global industry.

The TRACE consortium: a coalition supporting responsible value chains

An unprecedented collective initiative, the TRACE consortium brings together brands, suppliers and technology partners around a shared, secure platform. The group is built on common objectives and clearly defined responsibilities for each signatory, ensuring structured and effective pooling of resources. The fundamental objective is to accelerate the transition towards sustainable traceability that is both replicable and accessible across the entire value chain. This coalition of voluntary organizations, luxury brands, tier 1 to tier 9 suppliers and technology partners, shares common metrics and collaborative studies to move beyond fragmented data and adopt a common language, essential for effectively managing climate and ethical challenges. Collaboration between signatories is based on shared regulatory commitments, particularly regarding human rights and due diligence, making each member a fully engaged player in the transformation of the value chain.

According to Céline Beaumont-le-Duc, L'Oréal representative, individual initiatives do not have sufficient critical mass to make a decisive impact on the market. Sharing best practices, far from weakening competitive advantage, helps align methodologies and action priorities within the collective framework. This synergy accelerates partner engagement and strengthens employee pride within each organization. Laurent Chahet, from Laboratoire Expanscience, supports this analysis, noting that environmental challenges require considerable resources that only such a coalition can mobilize. Given that the cosmetics industry uses approximately 3 to 4% of the world's plant resources, solidarity is essential to exert influence on the market in the face of sectors such as the food industry, which account for the majority of volumes.

A two-dimensional strategy: due diligence and responsible value chains

TRACE stands out through a two-dimensional innovation strategy that addresses the complexity of supply chains from every angle, applying due diligence principles at every level of the responsible value chain:

The vertical dimension: This involves increasing transparency around priority and critical raw materials such as wood, paper and coconut oil. This deep dive into the supply chain makes it possible to identify cases of deforestation or human rights violations directly at the source, as part of a rigorous and documented due diligence approach that respects the rights of local communities and international legal commitments.
The horizontal dimension: This aims to share management best practices and align the obligations of partners and signatory organizations across the beauty sector. This lateral alliance ensures that the studies conducted and the results obtained benefit the entire ecosystem.

This comprehensive model makes it possible to address cross-cutting issues collectively, such as preserving biodiversity, ensuring a living income for farmers and renewing ageing plantations. By acting in this way, the TRACE consortium ensures a transformation that is not merely cosmetic, but deeply systemic.

Early supplier integration: an unprecedented operational pillar

Unlike traditional coalitions in which brands dictate terms to suppliers, the TRACE consortium involves these partners from the design phase onwards. Giving processors and packaging manufacturers an equal voice transforms the commercial relationship into a genuine strategic partnership. Suppliers are no longer simply executors, but active participants in defining CSR pathways, with clearly defined responsibilities and obligations within the collective framework.

Rémi Crémer, from Smurfit Westrock, highlights that this early integration enables suppliers to share their own sustainability challenges and long-standing certifications, such as FSC or PEFC. This pooling of expertise between organizations of different sizes and levels of maturity generates shared monitoring data and mutualized services that benefit the entire group. Gilles Swingedow, from ALBEA, confirms the impact of this approach: with a global network of 35 plants, connecting sales and purchasing flows to meet new traceability requirements represented a herculean challenge. The TRACE consortium acted as a catalyst, encouraging each participant to redesign its data structure and engage up to nine tiers of supplier partners through concrete and shared investments.

Governance and tools: the keys to the consortium’s effectiveness

The consortium’s success is based on a robust governance architecture that ensures the long-term sustainability of the collective effort. This institutional framework, managed by a neutral entity, clearly defines the scope of action and obligations of each member, supported by a solid legal framework that formalizes collaboration between organizations with very different profiles. The group’s effectiveness is supported by three key factors:

A unified roadmap: Despite differences in maturity and investment capacity among participants, the shared ambition creates a sustained pace of execution and common progress criteria.
Management by a third party: Coordination by a neutral entity ensures alignment of interests and avoids roadblocks linked to members’ internal governance. This inter-organizational partnership framework is essential to maintaining the trust of each signatory over the long term.
The exchange of anonymized data: Thanks to strict security protocols, organizations’ confidential information is protected. Only aggregated data is used to support collective action across sensitive value chains such as wood or coconut.

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The use of advanced technological tools, such as the Transparency One platform, makes it possible to process massive volumes of information while adhering to a strict code of ethics. Each member only has access to the tier that directly concerns them, ensuring protection against industrial espionage while providing auditors with full visibility. Laurent Chahet adds that this highly structured approach facilitates the integration of new participants through regular outreach, including mid-sized companies, encouraging continuous cross-fertilization through thematic workshops and specialized expert reports.

Turning regulatory constraints into opportunities: EUDR compliance and due diligence

The TRACE consortium acts as an observation and anticipation hub in the face of the European regulatory tsunami. By preparing its members for EUDR compliance and other upcoming directives, it transforms what could be a paralyzing constraint into a major competitive advantage. This shared regulatory framework between partners enables each signatory organization to achieve compliance more quickly and at a controlled cost. The collective effort focuses in particular on three fundamental pieces of legislation:

The EUDR (Deforestation Regulation): This regulation imposes strict geolocation-based traceability and due diligence requirements to prove that products do not contribute to deforestation. EUDR compliance represents one of the most significant priorities for the organizations within the group.
The CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive): It requires large companies to conduct detailed analyses of their climate, biodiversity and human rights data as part of consolidated and auditable reporting.
The CS3D (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive): It addresses the responsibility of organizations for the negative impacts of their activities throughout the value chain, strengthening legal due diligence commitments and the rights of stakeholders at every tier. Cooperation between consortium members is crucial here in order to respond collectively to these new obligations.

By pooling studies and feedback between partners, the consortium enables its members to anticipate new obligations and respond to them collectively. This alliance-based approach also brings greater credibility to the due diligence plans presented to authorities. According to Céline Beaumont-le-Duc, while existing certifications are useful, they often lack the 360-degree perspective offered by the consortium, which works directly with NGOs and field experts to support the most vulnerable or transitioning responsible value chains.

“THE VOICE OF A CONSORTIUM IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT OF AN INDIVIDUAL COMPANY. TRACE DEMONSTRATES THAT COLLABORATION IS INSEPARABLE FROM LONG-TERM RESILIENCE.” Gilles Swingedow, ALBEA.

Future outlook and ambition for industry leadership

Following a phase of internal consolidation, the TRACE consortium is preparing to enter a phase of public communication with the launch of its first impact report and web platform. Its future ambitions are clear: to further standardize data collection by connecting Transparency One with other global platforms and to develop projects that strengthen responsible value chains directly on the ground, in partnership with local stakeholders and the communities concerned.

The group is also aiming for international expansion, with the ambition of recruiting new participants in the United States and Japan to harmonize luxury and cosmetics practices on a global scale. This expansion reflects the consortium’s desire to make resource pooling a universal standard rather than an isolated European initiative. The approach could also extend to other industrial sectors, as traceability challenges related to wood or vegetable oils are common to many organizations beyond the cosmetics industry. The strength of the collective lies in its ability to bring stakeholders together and extend its impact far beyond its original boundaries.

[Image: World map of the value chains monitored by TRACE, illustrating data collection points from Southeast Asia to Latin America]

Conclusion: collective action as the foundation of responsible beauty

TRACE demonstrates that bringing brands and supplier partners together around a shared vision is the only way to address the ecological and social challenges of this century. Through its inclusive governance architecture, the consortium transforms EUDR compliance and due diligence obligations into drivers of efficiency and trust. This coalition illustrates that competitiveness and sustainability are two sides of the same coin, and that the future of the cosmetics industry will depend on this ability to build responsible value chains, link by link.