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SUSTAINABILITY AT SOMERVILLE
Natural Inspiration Picture Provence and you probably see rows of lavender and baked earth, a dazzle of sunlight on water and people at one with the landscape. So how does L’Occitane en Provence, a business steeped in the poetry of the natural world, deal with the grim realities of climate change? We met with Adrien Geiger (2004, Engineering Science), L’Occitane’s first ever Group Sustainability Officer, to find out.
O
n paper, Adrien Geiger does not strike one as a natural environmentalist. By profession he is an engineer and, since joining L’Occitane in 2014, his career has been defined by high-profile corporate roles, including Chief Customer Experience Officer, Chief Growth Officer and Group Brand Manager. And yet, despite the engineering and business acumen, Geiger is a lifelong advocate for sustainability. His first job
was developing solar plants with French renewables firm Energies Nouvelle, and throughout his time at L’Occitane he has driven environmental initiatives from behind the scenes. Most recently, he was instrumental in L’Occitane’s 2019 partnership with Plastic Odyssey, which sent a vessel powered by plastic waste collected from the ocean on a three-year journey along the most polluted coasts of Latin America, Africa and Asia.
