L’OCCITANE Foundation

Summary: 

Organizational profile:
L’OCCITANE Foundation is a philanthropic organization based in France. L’OCCITANE founder Olivier Baussan has always been amazed by nature, the exceptional properties of plants, and the incredible powers of their active ingredients. It was only natural that a commitment to protecting nature and the people who surround it would emerge. As the brand has developed, the founder’s values have remained key L'OCCITANE concerns. Various initiatives have been launched including asking customers to bring empty bottles into stores so they can be recycled, ensuring producers receive a fair income, and adding braille to most product packaging for the benefit of non-sighted individuals. To complement these activities, L’OCCITANE created the L’OCCITANE Foundation in 2006.

The Foundation supports initiatives that aim to conserve biodiversity. In 2019, the L’OCCITANE Foundation's commitment to respecting biodiversity extends internationally through the co-financing of subsidiaries’ local projects. These projects are today still pre-identified, studied and validated by the Foundation and the subsidiaries, but exclusively financed by the latter, who thus maintain a privileged relationship with their local partners. For example, in 2021-2022, L'OCCITANE Brazil and the L'OCCITANE Foundation have been supporting the Mata Ciliar association's project to preserve Brazilian biodiversity by mobilizing locals in the Circuito das Aguas Paulista region and with the help of the Cantareira System, the largest water supply system in South America. The objective of the project is to preserve forest and water resources by planting native plant species. The association is also setting up modules to train local people in agroforestry practices. They will then be able to exploit these resources and generate alternative income. In addition, focusing on tree plantation for conservation of threatened varieties, reforestation of degraded ecosystems and/or agroforestry practices is one of the eligibility criteria for receiving funding from L'OCCITANE.

 

Financing Instrument: Grants

 

Project scale: N/A

 

Recipient countries regions/country groups: 
AUSTRALIA, HUNGARY, RUSSIA, AUSTRIA, INDIA, SINGAPORE, BENELUX, IRELAND, SLOVAKIA, BRAZIL, ITALY, SOUTH AFRICA, CANADA, JAPAN, SPAIN, CHINA, KOREA, SWEDEN, CZECH REPUBLIC, MALAYSIA, SWITZERLAND, FINLAND, MEXICO, FRANCE, NORWAY, THAILAND, GERMANY, POLAND, UNITED-KINGDOM, PORTUGAL, USA

 

Recipient categories: NGOs

 

Eligibility Criteria:

  • The local project needs to be carried out by organizations of public interest. 
  • The local project must focus on vegetal biodiversity preservation (Trees plantation for conservation of threatened varieties, reforestation of degraded ecosystems and/or agroforestry practices).
  • The local project needs to have measurable results. The number of planted trees, the number & name of protected varieties/species and the surface planted & regenerated thanks to the help of L’OCCITANE are key.
  • A project with both measurable short-term effects and long-term impacts is strongly recommended.
  • A strong focus will be done on the capacity of the project to respond to specific local issues and on its sustainability, to become operationally and financially autonomous (including advocacy, awareness-raising, local staff training; the multiplicity of fundings).
  • To build a strong local relationship between L’OCCITANE’s subsidiary and the NGO, L’OCCITANE Foundation recommends that either the NGO has a local office and/or the project takes place in one of the countries listed (see recipient countries regions/country groups).

 

Application guidelines:
If all the eligibility criteria are validated, applicants are expected to contact the L’OCCITANE local office located in their country, or where the project is taking place, in order to present their structure and project. Since the call for projects is based on the local L’OCCITANE subsidiary’s commitment, and the projects are supported by the subsidiary itself, the individual subsidiary is the decision-maker and therefore remains the preferred direct contact. However, if applicants are unable to contact the local L'OCCITANE office in their country, they can contact respectingbiodiversity@loccitane.com

The application deadline for the 2022-2023 Call for Projects is February 7th for a project submitted directly to the L'OCCITANE Foundation via respectingbiodiversity@loccitane.com, and February 28th for NGOs submitting a project via the L'OCCITANE subsidiary. Only projects submitted before the deadline through form applications and strictly meeting the eligibility criteria will be taken into account and sent to the subsidiaries. Subsidiaries will not necessarily be able to return to all NGOs.

The application form requires a brief summary of the applicant’s project (three lines maximum), the total budget of the project and the total requested grants. Also, there are other short-answer questions such as how the applicant’s project is answering a need of public interest, how this project is different from other projects that have already been done in the country, how their project is useful for the preservation of biodiversity, etc. 

Publication Date
Wednesday, 30 March 2022
Applicable location
Australia
Hungary
Russian Federation (the)
Austria
India
Singapore
Belgium
Netherlands (the)
Luxembourg
Ireland
Slovakia
Brazil
Italy
Canada
South Africa
Spain
Japan
China
Malaysia
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the)
Sweden
Czech Republic (the)
Switzerland
Finland
Mexico
Portugal
France
Germany
Thailand
Norway
Poland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)
United States of America (the)
Topic/Theme
Biodiversity conservation
Forest landscape restoration
Forest conservation and management
Agroforestry
Database
Financing opportunities