[Editor's Note: this is a short excerpt from a podcast interview Marc Gunther conducted with Dominique Conseil, president of Aveda. To read the full transcript, or to listen to or download the podcast, see "Aveda, Cradle to Cradle, and a Paradigm Shift in Cosmetics."]

MG: Let's talk for a minute about packaging. I'm told that the company took a risk some years ago and introduced refillable lipsticks. Now I have to say I'm not a cosmetics expert. I didn't even realize this was a new thing. But could you tell us a little bit about this lipstick packaging idea that you had and then how the marketplace responded?

DC: Yes. Again, it was a paradigm shift because all lipstick cases are all used only one time for the lipstick that they contain, and the idea was to reduce considerably an unnecessary waste by introducing the idea of a resealable lipstick case.

And as we considered the future consumers of this product as stakeholders, we found out that indeed they thought that this was a very good progress for the environment, and they mentioned to us that they would probably buy one case for three lipsticks. And when we introduced this in 2002, it was an overwhelming success and recycling was even more than planned. Consumers ended up buying one lipstick case for six lipsticks, so it was again a win not just for the economy that the Aveda company represents but also the environment.

Aveda's Dominique Conseil

MG: I take it it's good for you in terms of reducing packaging because you can deliver the product, the lipstick, without spending as much on a new package every time.

DC: Exactly. And the lipstick case was very innovative because it was made of composite material, recycled flax fibers from the agricultural business and recycled polypropylene from the industrial business, and this created a very unique looking and certainly very environmental packaging.

MG: Dominique, have you found any places where there are tensions or conflicts between your environmental goals and your business goals and if so, how do you deal with those?

DC: No. Honestly, there are no conflicts. When a company starts to have sustainable agenda, there are some immediate wins. When you start an energy efficient policy, as you reduce emissions of carbon, you will also shave a part of your utility bill, so there is a kind of immediate benefit to your profitability as well. Now, of course, this kind of green agenda is not sufficient. It's not Cradle to Cradle. Being less bad is not good enough. You need to try to ensure this triple win -- the win for the economy, the win for the community, and the win for the ecology -- and that takes further approach.

And so you may ask, "Yes, but does this second, more effective approach to ecology come with a cost?" Well, in our case, it doesn't because we are innovation-driven, so we consider that the innovation we put in our products and in our ways of doing business is also the same innovative spirit in which we try new things for the benefit of the community and the environment. And these two sources of innovation -- products, business on one side and community, earth on the other side -- are really part of the value that we offer to consumers and to professionals of our industry, and we call this the Aveda Green Value Creation. So it's really not a cost. It's really not a line on the list of expense. It's part of the innovative process of creating better performing, higher integrity, higher quality, just better and more differentiated products.