Trump might label them “green scams”, but firms are quietly getting on with multi-million-dollar sustainability projects. Just ask beauty giant L’Oréal 

Few would choose the humble showerhead when asked to name a product vital to the world’s sustainable future. Unless you are a hair salon engaged in the business of washing customers’ hair, of course. Then using 70% less water could well matter as you attempt to cut your carbon footprint. It is more efficient as well. 

The Water Saver showerhead came from a partnership between the Swiss startup, Gjosa, and L’Oréal, the global beauty brand and Fortune 500 Europe member. At its most basic, Water Saver makes water, well, wetter—fragmenting the water streams to create droplets better suited to rinsing hair. 5,000 salons now use it across Europe. 

Science and engineering underpin much of what businesses do—whether that is making concrete or lipstick. Ten years ago, during the sustainability gold rush, you could not move for clever company professors proffering solutions to sustainable packaging and non-fossil fuel energy. Then came COVID, the return of inflation, and Donald Trump brandishing lurid allegations that the climate agenda was nothing but a “green scam”.  Many companies pivoted away from trumpeting environmental policies as a result.

But sustainability is not just for Christmas. Politically, the atmospherics have changed but the essential nature of the challenge—living well on our planet for the next hundred generations—has........

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