US: Sephora launches empties collection program – How do its customers view recycling?

Sephora has collaborated with a non-profit, Pact Collective, to launch ‘Beauty (Re)Purposed’ - Sephora’s first North American empties collection program. Regardless of the brand, Sephora’s customers can drop off empty beauty packaging across 600 stores across the US and Canada.

We look at Sephora customers to understand their attitudes toward environmentally-friendly packaging and sustainability.

According to YouGov Profiles - which covers demographic, psychographic, attitudinal and behavioral consumer metrics - 70% of the beauty retailers’ customers believe companies that produce packaged goods should do more to reduce unnecessary packaging, and 56% of the general American population agrees.

Sephora’s customers (65%) are also more likely than Americans in general (50%) to believe that companies that sell packaged goods must do more.  

Over half (55%) of the retailer’s customers and almost a third (32%) of the general US population believes the government could do more on this front. That consumers should do more to reduce the amount of unnecessary packaging is a belief held by 41% of Sephora’s customers and 31% of US consumers in general.

Few of the beauty brand’s shoppers (2%) and 7% of Americans in general don’t believe it is necessary to make any reductions in unnecessary packaging.

We explore YouGov data to see what efforts shoppers are willing to make in a personal capacity to reduce waste from packaging that can’t be recycled. 

Almost one third (32%) of Sephora’s customers try to buy less goods that have packaging that cannot be recycled. Just under a quarter (23%) of Americans in general do the same.

Over half (53%) of the retailer’s customers try to re-use disposable items such as plastic bags and 41% of this group make an effort to buy more products made from recycled materials. 

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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for the US is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Learn more about Profiles. 

Photo by Deva Darshan on Unsplash