Bit by bit, expectations of the global cosmetics industry have been ramping up over the last decade or so – in terms of ingredients, product formulation, ethics in the supply chain, marketing, environmental standards, biodiversity and climate change. What was acceptable a decade ago is now seen as primitive and exploitative – of people, animals and the environment.

Thinking ahead to 2030, given what we now know about accelerating climate change, collapsing ecosystems, human rights abuses and chronic deep inequality in countries all around the world, industry leaders would be well-advised to recognise that their companies’ ‘social licence to operate’ will be harder to earn, year on year.

This will demand some transformational thinking: what will concepts like Net Zero Carbon, Nature Positive, Cruelty-Free and Shared Value mean, in practice, by 2030? Leading brands trade enthusiastically on the intimacy of the connections that they have with consumers, and that plays both ways: get it right, and the commercial rewards are significant; get it wrong, in these much more volatile, disrupted times, and those brands will be toast.