L’Oreal Water Saver

This partnership between l’Oreal and the Swiss startup Gjosa particularly surprised me as they created the first showerhead inside the salons which allows you to conserve water and not waste it. Many liters of water are wasted every day and if we think about haircare salons it is easy to understand that water is a fundamental resource for them.

But how much water do they waste? And how can we reduce waste?

This was the challenge that L’Oreal and Gjosa faced. With this invention, more than 200 million liters of water and 13 million kWh are saved. L’oreal states that water is its first priority as it’s roughly 75% of its total environmental impact.

So, L’Oreal created a program, Hairstylists for the Future, trying to engage hairstylists in the sustainable transition, helping them to act on 3 main pillars:

- managing waste responsibly,

- reducing water consumption,

- and transitioning to renewable energy.

The first showerhead leveraging patented water fragmentation technology to save up to 69% water at the backbar contributing to lower CO2 emissions.
This invention is nominated the best inventions in 2021 and particularly inspired me as water waste is a topic that is still much discussed and a multinational like L’Oreal has the ethical responsibility not to ignore this problem. It is important to see how technology can be used to create social innovations. The haircare sector uses a lot of water and this new technology could be the key to significantly reducing waste and devising new working methods that do not require so much water. An additional challenge could be to make this new technology accessible and compatible with all salons as it is currently only compatible with l’Oreal salons. If this technology could spread to all the salons in the world, a substantial waste of water could be observed.