Great Barrier Reef Foundation Partnership

L’Oréal Groupe Australia and New Zealand, has proudly announced a new partnership with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF), to help coral reefs withstand the devastating impacts of climate change. L’Oréal Groupe is reinforcing its longstanding commitment to biodiversity, with a 6th new investment in coral reef regeneration with the GBRF, via the L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration. To date, the beneficial €50M Fund has committed more than €28M in projects, including dedicated partnerships with nature regeneration experts, to ensure the regeneration natural habitats, including the Great Barrier Reef.

“I’m delighted to announce one of the largest investments with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation as part of the €50M L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration. Our objective is to plant 2 million heat-tolerant corals on the Great Barrier Reef by 2035, and to catalyse a new market for sustainable funding of these interventions based on a Coral Biodiversity Credit (CBC) scheme. L’Oréal Groupe understands that it has a role to play, to contribute to important causes, such as improving ocean and reef health”, says Alex Davison | CEO L’Oréal ANZ

The L’Oréal Fund for Nature Regeneration includes mindful projects that also support the regeneration of degraded land, mangroves, and forests. Beyond ecological restoration, these projects proactively address the social needs of surrounding communities, through the development of sustainable livelihood opportunities including agriculture and fisheries, ecotourism, and commercialisation of carbon credits. These communities will live in a healthier environment, benefit from new economic opportunities, and enhanced resilience to climate change. By 2030, the Fund will have helped restore one million hectares of degraded ecosystems, and created hundreds of promising job opportunities.

Did you know that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet, and considered one of seven natural wonders of the world? This incredible, biodiverse ecosystem is greater in size than United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined, and is home to 10% of the world’s fish species, 30 species of whales and dolphins, and 600+ types of hard and soft corals. Climate change is disrupting the delicate balance of the reef’s ecosystem, leading to species loss, and declining ocean health – if we do not intervene at scale within the next decade, alarmingly, 90% of the coral reefs will die by 2050 across the world.

The 10-year commitment from L’Oréal will fund an integral component of the world-leading Reef Restoration and Adaption Program (RRAP), a collaboration of Australia’s leading science organisations and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to restore coral reefs in different ways. Aside from unlocking significant, and required funding to sustain reef restoration efforts, the partnership will support critical reef interventions, including the targeted deployment of two million heat-tolerant corals on the Great Barrier Reef by 2035. Corals with increased heat tolerance have the potential to reduce the impact of reef bleaching from marine heat waves.

The partnership will also see the development of a world-first method of calculating the value of coral reef biodiversity, and support the deployment of corals with improved temperature tolerance. The goal is that the new methodology will enable a nature repair market, and unlock much-needed funding for vital reef conservation efforts. Nature repair markets are emerging as an effective way to finance the necessary acceleration, and scaling of conservation activities to meet the global challenges that lay ahead. This large-scale research and development program is also supported by a $100M investment from the Australian Government’s Reef Trust.

L’Oréal Groupe is thrilled to partner with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, to create a future for the world’s coral reefs, by protecting ocean habitats, restoring coral reefs, and helping them adapt to the impacts of climate change.

To learn more about the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, visit: https://www.barrierreef.org

For media enquiries, please contact: Kelly Fall-armytage