Beauty products company Capsum has opened a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, USA. The new solar-powered, LEED-Silver certified and carbon-neutral facility, solely serving the US market, has been designed to reduce the company’s carbon footprint while making a major contribution in achieving the company’s ambitions of developing its activities in the US market, where it sees great potential for growth.

“American brands already account for a quarter of our business, thanks to our sales offices in NYC and Los Angeles,” stated Sébastien Bardon, Capsum’s co-founder and CEO. “Time-to-market is a critical criterion for these customers, so it is a real advantage to have a local production site.”

The US site, which completed its first customer production and delivery in September of this year, has 200-250 employees and a production capacity of 40 million units a year, compared to the 15 million units produced in Marseille. All beauty products manufactured at the Austin site will be sustainably made.

Referring to the site’s environmental credentials, Bardon pointed out that the new site contributes to fulfilling Capsum’s 2025 vision as one of the first LEED-certified buildings in the beauty industry, while being powered by solar energy and having its own ‘solar’ water.

“Right from the beginning, we aimed to minimize our environmental footprint by balancing the site’s energy consumption with solar-generated electricity,” said Bardon, adding that the energy- and resource-efficient, 126,000-sq.ft. site helps limit Capsum’s energy consumption due to the solar energy produced by its 3,570 rooftop solar panels The annual estimated energy production is equivalent to 2 GWh, equivalent to the consumption of 200 US households.

Bardon also commented that in addition to the carbon-neutral, local production offered by the new site, the company’s R&D team was working on cleaner formulas and more sustainable packaging choices to help brands create eco-designed products and that at most of its formulas are free of silicon, EDTA and phenoxyethanol, are not of animal origin and contain as many sustainably sourced raw materials as possible.