Turning sustainability into strategy: AI’s role in modern cosmetics

ANJAC Health & Beauty has become the first contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) to manage the environmental impact of its products through a partnership with Fairglow, an AI-powered life cycle assessment (LCA) cosmetics platform. The partnership utilizes AI to bolster ANJAC’s environmental commitments in the industry.

Personal Care Insights speaks to Fairglow and ANJAC about the dynamics of sustainability in contemporary cosmetics.

“[Fairglow’s] AI-driven solution enables ANJAC to assess entire product portfolios within weeks, something that traditional approaches struggle to achieve, as they are often limited to complex, ad hoc analyses of only a small number of products,” says Anne Rutigliano, marketing and innovation director at ANJAC Group.

With the aid of Fairglow, ANJAC is among the latest companies to integrate AI into its sustainability operations. The partnership implements eco-design solutions at the ingredient, formulation, and R&D levels. 

Setting a precedent

AI tools are transforming cosmetic sustainability.

ANJAC and Fariglow aim to set a precedent for sustainability-focused collaborations and innovations that advance a more responsible beauty sector.

“The partnership between ANJAC and Fairglow represents the future of the industry: the union of industrial excellence and sustainable data intelligence,” says Quentin Carayon, Fairglow’s co-founder and CEO.

 “A CDMO like ANJAC provides the physical expertise, while Fairglow provides the ‘environmental OS.’”

The benefits of such collaborations for other brands include scaling compliance, accelerating time-to-market, and democratizing transparency.

“Individual brands don’t have to reinvent the wheel — they leverage a pre-validated, sustainable supply chain ecosystem,” says Carayon. 

Fairglow’s real-time environmental scoring, integrated into ANJAC’s operations, enables time-to-market acceleration and for brands to validate sustainability claims almost instantly.

“It enables us to assess the environmental impact of individual products, entire ranges, and even complete production sites in a very short span of time,” says Rutigliano.

“Beyond regulatory compliance, this approach bolsters our ability to support our clients in making more sustainable choices while remaining competitive. It also provides a tool to measure the eco-design performance of our innovation pipeline, guiding our strategic innovation choices.” 

Carayon also underscores that by lowering access points, approaches like this make sustainability a cosmetics industry standard rather than a luxury niche, proving that you can be both a global leader in volume and a pioneer in ecological integrity.

“Ultimately, partnerships like this are not just about meeting today’s regulatory requirements, but about building the capabilities needed to anticipate future expectations and drive the long-term transformation of the beauty industry,” Rutigliano says.

Feasible sustainability

Data-driven eco-design reshapes beauty R&D.

Eco-design pushes businesses to rethink their processes, raw materials, and packaging, and to find solutions through innovation.

“The perceived conflict between innovation and cost is often a data gap,” says Carayon. “By integrating sustainability metrics early in the R&D phase, brands can avoid the ‘sustainability tax’ later in the life cycle.”

“High upfront costs are mitigated when sustainability is treated as a performance indicator rather than a constraint. Data-driven tools such as Fairglow allow laboratories and brands to simulate the environmental impact of a formula before a single drop is mixed, ensuring that ‘green’ also means lean and profitable.”

Rutigliano echoes Fairglow’s CEO. She explains that eco-design does not necessarily translate into higher costs or added complexity. However, when it does, a significant share of consumers, particularly younger generations who expect strong environmental commitments, are willing to pay more for genuinely responsible products.

According to Carayon, Fairglow’s approach to eco-design is paved with data intelligence. He believes that with a strategic approach and the right data tool, revenue and sustainability can overlap significantly.

Ahead of the regulation curve

Developing sustainable solutions for cosmetic products is particularly complex due to the intricacy of formulas, which contain an average of 21 ingredients.

ANJAC aligns its corporate responsibility strategy with ecological regulatory developments, such as the European Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which aims to standardize key end-to-end product data. ANJAC’s partnership with Fairglow further emboldens its sustainability efforts through key data insights and sustainable solutions aligned with these policies.

During the partnership’s successful 2024 pilot project, ANJAC analyzed more than 2,700 SKUs in 2025. The partnership expects the number to continue to grow as deployment progresses.

The partnership grants ANJAC access to “unparalleled modeling capabilities, allowing [it] to evaluate the potential impact of changes in ingredients, packaging, and manufacturing processes,” says Rutigliano.

Digital LCA supports responsible cosmetic innovation.

Keeping the edge

When asked about the steps beauty companies can take now to future-proof their operations and minimize their environmental footprint as regulations like ESPR and the Green Claims Directive come into effect, Carayon and Rutigliano both stressed the importance of timeliness.

“The most important step is to anticipate change and aim to get ahead, rather than trying to catch up. New regulations are often introduced gradually, and by taking a forward-looking approach, companies can demonstrate that they are acting out of conviction rather than obligation. This also allows them to position themselves as frontrunners, gain credibility, and ultimately secure a competitive advantage,” says Rutigliano.

Carayon suggests various tangible action points businesses can take. “Audit their data maturity, ensuring every claim is backed by a verifiable primary source. Align reporting with the Product Environmental Footprint methodology now. And finally, integrate regulatory constraints directly into the product lifecycle management.”

“Companies must move away from static PDFs and toward dynamic, granular data. To comply with the Green Claims Directive, ‘vague’ is the enemy,” he says. “At Fairglow, we help brands transition from defensive compliance (doing just enough to avoid fines) to offensive transparency, using their environmental data as a competitive advantage.”

Policy protection

ANJAC and Fairglow explain how policymakers can work more effectively with the beauty industry to ensure that sustainability standards and eco-labelling guidelines are clear, enforceable, and effectively address environmental concerns without stifling innovation.

“Policymakers should foster open and transparent dialogue with manufacturers to gain a clear understanding of industry realities, including the operational impact of new requirements and their technical feasibility. This collaboration is essential to ensure companies have sufficient time to adapt,” says Rutigliano.

“Establishing new standards to make the beauty industry more sustainable is a necessary and important objective. However, these requirements must remain realistic and achievable, and we need to be careful not to jeopardize local production or industrial competitiveness.”

Rutigliano stresses that a collaborative approach between policymakers and industry stakeholders is therefore key to ensuring that sustainability goals are met without unintentionally stifling innovation or weakening the sector.”

Carayon adds that policy should follow the path of technological feasibility. 

“Policymakers need to adopt a sandbox approach with industry tech enablers. We need harmonized frameworks that recognize the complexity of cosmetic chemistry while remaining enforceable. Instead of rigid bans that can stifle R&D, we advocate for incentive-based transparency.”

Pointing to incentives, he notes: “If policymakers reward companies that provide high-fidelity, transparent data through digital tools, it creates a race to the top.”