the growth in refillable packaging options offered by L'Oréal Group between 2019 and 2025, part of a push that's now landed properly in travel retail.

Sustainability sells differently depending on what you're selling.

Beauty has been moving fast on certified, eco-conscious ranges. L'Oréal Travel Retail's new refill campaign is a good example, and they're far from alone, certified eco ranges are becoming a genuine listing differentiator across the beauty category. Worth asking though, does the same dynamic apply across accessories and tech? Not always, and not in one uniform way, and I think that's worth being honest about rather than pretending every category, or even every product within a category, behaves the same.

Beauty's advantage

Beauty in travel retail is a treat, an indulgence, often a gift. Sustainability slots naturally into that emotional purchase, it becomes part of the story you're buying into, not a complication. L'Oréal Travel Retail's "World Refill Month" campaign, launched this June, is a good example of how far this has moved. It ran across 14 international airport hubs, with a hero activation at Paris Orly where a "retail robot" walked travellers through the refill ritual, spanning 10 brands and 18 luxury refills. Over 1,800 beauty advisors were trained specifically to handle sustainability questions at the point of sale. That's not a marketing layer bolted on afterwards, that's operational investment in making the sustainable choice the easy one.

Tech's honest reality

A lot of travel retail tech is bought under duress. A forgotten charger, a dead pair of earbuds, a phone at 4% battery with a long-haul flight ahead. That's a distress purchase, and at the point of sale, the immediate need overrides almost everything else, sustainability included. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest, and I don't think it does anyone any favours to oversimplify the category this way.

Worth being precise here though, that's not true across our whole range either. Travel accessories like neck pillows and other comfort items sit closer to beauty's dynamic, a considered purchase, sometimes even a small treat ahead of a long flight, rather than something grabbed in a panic. It's a useful reminder that "tech" and "accessories" aren't one category with one purchasing psychology, even within a single supplier's range.

But that doesn't mean sustainability stops mattering, it just moves to a different point in the chain. It works at the buyer level, justifying a listing, future-proofing a range against delisting as buyer criteria tighten. And it's increasingly starting to matter at the consumer level too. NielsenIQ's research finds 73% of global consumers say they're willing to change their consumption habits to reduce their environmental impact. Among Gen Z specifically, First Insight's research puts it sharper still: 62% prefer to buy from sustainable brands, 73% say they'll pay more for sustainable products, and three-quarters say sustainability now matters more to them than the brand name itself. That's the generation increasingly walking through these terminals. For now, the honest version is this: certified suppliers future-proof the buyer's decision, whether or not the end customer clocks it at the till, but that end customer is getting more likely to clock it every year.

No pitch this week, just a question worth sitting with. Do you think about sustainability differently across your own category mix, or does it get treated the same way regardless of what's on the shelf? I'd be curious to hear how it lands from where you sit.

A bit more info, as always.

Adam

Commercial Director · Bitmore · adam@bitmore.co.uk