**3.1 Natura cosmetic**

Natura is a Brazilian company, present in ten countries, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019. It operates in the cosmetic products sector, maintain its market leadership in Brazil, and is the preferred brand in four of the six countries in which directly operates in Latin America. It is becoming the fourth largest group dedicated to the beauty sector and the largest direct selling in the world.

The company has two industrial units, located in Cajamar (Sao Paulo), and Benevides (Para), opened in 2007, and third-party production in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia e México, with 12 distribution centers, 7 in Brazil and 5 in Latin America. It operates in the national market and in seven other countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, United States, France, Mexico and Peru). It involves 1.8 million personal and online consultants, 1,6 million engaged in the digital palatiform, 68.000 virtual stores. It has 489 physical stores with more than 5 million consumers [21].


#### **Table 2.**

*Cases numbers and information.*

In fact, is one of the leading global companies when evaluated by sustainable business practices. It is recognized for its pioneering role in socio-environmental activities and investments in product innovation, as well by multiple international certifications. It was the first GRI reporting organization in Brazil; it was one of the first multinationals certified as a B Corp in December 2014; it was the first company to use refills in the Brazilian market. It has been listed on B3 (Sao Paulo Stock Exchange), on Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE) since 2005, on Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DSJI) for emerging markets; it was listed on the Corporate Knights ranking as the most sustainable companies in the world for 11 years and it was attested by Leaping Bunny certification, by cruelty free International (2018). It does not conduct tests on animals since 2006 - a common practice in cosmetic sector; the company's packaging is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and it was certificated by Union for Ethical Bio Trade (UEBT), attesting the sustainability of the natural ingredients supply chain for its Ekos Product Line. It received an award at The Climate Neutral Now Category of the 2019 UN Global Climate Action Award.

Natura has integrated socioenvironmental practices into its business model since its founding in 1969. The sustainability culture is firmly embedding in the beliefs, values, mission and vision statements. The commitment and support of the top management is fundamental for in root culture - the founders in effect create a culture to support sustainability decisions. They are recognized as an active leadership in the management and inspired all the employees of the company, that are motivated to take sustainability obligations seriously, and engaged to promote resource efficiency, conservation and innovation. Sustainability is integrated with governance mechanisms, since operational level to the policies and company's strategies, where its performance measurement and management systems include social and environmental indicators linked to remuneration in addition to financial performance. According to the supplier manager, sustainability is a cross-cutting theme throughout the company and serve as guidelines for all areas. The company also aligns their strategies with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and has identified the relevant SDGs aligned with their goals and mission, measuring and managing their impacts.

In 1999 under the growing concern about the degradation of the environment by man action, company made the decision to incorporate ingredients of Brazilian biodiversity in the manufacture of its products. In addition to contributing to sustainable development through the transformation of socio-environmental challenges into business opportunities, the motivation was also the possibility of developing green technologies [22].

Sustainable product-oriented supply chain management goes beyond riskoriented and performance-oriented evaluation, whose focus is to avoid loss of *Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability in Corporate Strategy: Brazilian Cases Studies DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94414*

reputation caused by suppliers' problems. It is based on definitions of social and environmental performance standards to be disseminated throughout the supply chain for the manufacture of sustainable products [23].

Natura has a supply chain comprising 11,900 companies, from various sectors and sizes. It performs audit processes on critical suppliers and on new ones. In this process, the company has built partnerships for product development, such as packaging, (green plastic Brasken) and organic alcohol (Native). However, to develop a supply chain based on biodiversity is necessary to go further as it involves a relationship with the community's suppliers, with diverse cultures, traditions and expectations.

The great milestone in the company's history was the creation of the Ekos line, with ingredients of Brazilian biodiversity into its products formulation, combining traditional knowledge and local wealth generation. This initiative marked the business model transformation to sustainable economy. Its launch in 2000 materialized the company's pioneering purpose of integrating assets into its innovation platform. It was not only the creation of a new line of cosmetics, but a new business model based on the valorization of the standing forest and the socioeconomic development of the local population. The project had the Brazilian Amazon as its heart [21]. Amazon forest is considered the cradle of planetary biodiversity, there are four hundred billion trees distributed among 16.000 species, something about 300 species per hectare, is a huge carbon stock, equivalent to approximately a decade of global emissions – 330 billion tons of CO2, which, if released into the atmosphere via deforestation, would greatly exacerbate global climate change [24].

The Ekos brand since its launch was a commercial success and has played a leading role in the company's internationalization process, with high acceptance by consumers, contributing to Natura's image and reputation, identified to sustainability and innovation. The transformations brought by Ekos products led to a chain reaction in other product categories, such as the vegetalization of all soap formulas, which became 100% free of animal fat, incorporating a higher concentration of vegetable oils produced in the Amazon forest. Over the years, other sub-brands started to use these raw materials in the composition of their products. In 2019, 17,7% of inputs came from the region and they are pursuing the target established by 2020 of 30% of socio biodiversity ingredients in the composition of new products in main categories [21, 25].

For two decades, the company structured the socio biodiversity chains production. In the first year, the purchase of inputs was made indirectly, through intermediary suppliers. Soon, it was understood that the relationship with local people and communities (through cooperatives and associations) was an essential factor for maintaining biodiversity and company's commitment to fair trade, benefit sharing and transparency in the supply chain.

In 2011, Natura launched the Natura Amazônia Program (PAM), whose objective is to foster sustainable business and local development, always focusing on valuing socio-biodiversity, traditional knowledge and culture in the region. The program brought together the various initiatives, adopted the strategy of acting in sustainable territories, focusing on investments in priority geographic areas in the Amazon and respecting local vocations, resources and potentialities [25–27].

The most recent 2050 Sustainability Vision targets, established by the company in 2014, reinforced Natura's commitment to generate a positive impact. The company not only aspires for a positive environmental impact but also to adopt more sustainable practices relative to social biodiversity. The first milestone - 2020 Ambitions, were a set of targets related to biodiversity, waste carbon emissions, water, diversity and income generation. By 2019, it had achieved 70% of these commitments and it still strives to accelerate its efforts to fully achieve the stated

#### *Corporate Social Responsibility*

targets. The plan for the next 10 years seeks to intensify global actions, such as the climate crisis, the protection of Amazonia, the defense of human rights and considering inclusion throughout its network. Its commitment is to contribute to the preservation of 3 million hectares by 2030 and make collective efforts to ensure zero deforestation of Amazonia by 2025. It anticipates investments of US\$ 800 million over the next 10 years. The program's investments are based on three pillars:


from emissions neutralization with other companies and encourages the adoption of a low carbon economy. In addition, a collaborative platform has been developed for other companies to invest in greenhouse gas (GHG) compensation of their actions, based on the experience gained by the company in the implementation of the Carbon Neutral Program in the last decade. This program was unfolded in another initiative called Circular Carbon – the company's first project to pay for carbon offset within the production chain. It has been made possible so far, the reduction of deforestation in the 126 properties through the remuneration of farmers families. Between 2013 and 2016, the deforestation rate for this territory was 0.93%; the goal is to reach zero deforestation at the end of 25 years. Between 2011 and 2019, it has been conserved 1.8 million of ha in partnership with supplier communities, nongovernmental organizations, and public authorities, more than 3,6 million t CO2 equivalents off set. The supplier chain involves 39 communities, 6.197 families and 26 species of biodiversity, generating US 450 million of business volume for the regions.

*"Ekos' transformative premise is to build a story in which the entire chain involved —from production to final product consumption—benefits. The supplying communities gain with the extraction of assets and the discovery of new possibilities to undertake; the processors of raw materials gain from the preparation of new products; the consultants, with the revenue generated by the sale of cosmetics; and finally, consumers gain, having at their disposal innovative beauty items, with benefits for the body's care and with aggregate socio-environmental values" [21].*
