We know her from Paris, we followed her to New York, then Hong Kong, for the development of Caudalie.
We know less that Mathilde Thomas grew up in the countryside, near Grenoble.
"We lived on a farm with chickens, dogs, horses," she recalls.
My parents, who worked a lot, entrusted us with my sister during the holidays to our communist ecological grandparents: we participated in the collection of waste in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, in the picking of fruit for jams... When, much later, my parents bought Château Smith Haut Lafitte, they immediately stopped using pesticides, rehabilitated manual harvesting and converted the vineyard to organic.
So yes, there is a form of family atavism in my attachment to nature.
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His imprint
Faced with the emergence of organic brands and the environmental emergency, Mathilde Thomas decided in 2018 to go even further in her conception of a clean brand.
By “upgrading” the formulas (today 95% of natural origin) and the packaging, now all recycled, recyclable or refillable.
By multiplying commitments, too.
"Caudalie, already three times carbon neutral, is the largest cosmetics company contributing to the 1% for the planet movement, which consists in donating 1% of our turnover each year to associations for the preservation of the environment, underlines Matilda Thomas.
This allowed us to replant 10 million trees.”
In 2020, with her husband, they created with Tristan Lecomte, the founder of Alter Eco and Pur Project,
the 100% Plastic Collect Project.
The concept: collect each year on the beaches of Asia the same quantity of plastic as that used by the company (more than 600 tons in 2022).
Once sorted, it is recycled into urban cobblestones for the construction of roads and houses.
"But our goal is really to achieve zero plastic," said the leader.
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Its ecosystem
To do this, Caudalie is recruiting!
After hiring two packaging engineers, the company is still looking for its director of sustainable development, to better measure and define clear and achievable objectives, as well as an agricultural engineer.
“With us, all the services have eco-responsible objectives and receive bonuses on them.
Today, 90% of people come to work at Caudalie for our commitment.”
His oxygen
The mountains in summer and winter, cycling everywhere and with the family.
"To see clearly, you have to leave the office," smiles Mathilde Thomas.
My children also challenge us: they clean beaches, plant trees in Peru and China.
I think they will all choose jobs related to eco-responsibility.
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