Global warming is rippling through the multibillion-dollar perfume industry, destroying the delicate flowers behind some of our favorite fragrances.
During harvest times, the town of Grasse bursts with aromas of roses, tuberose, and jasmine. The small hillside idyll on the French Riviera, often considered the capital of modern perfumery, is a flower source for the likes of Chanel or Dior. Although its contribution to the global industry is tiny, the quality of Grasse’s flowers—particularly jasmine, which sells for a higher price than gold—makes the region crucial to a high-end perfumer’s palette.
This year, though, Grasse took a hit. The town and region, along with much of western Europe faced extreme drought, which wiped out swaths of flower crops. The tuberose harvest was 40% less than last year. Farmers across the wider region saw flower yields down by as much as half.
Farmers complain, having a very challenging drought over a long, long period. Over the summer, they imposed the town’s first water restrictions, limiting farmers to irrigating at night and with less water.
Grasse isn’t alone: Climate change threatens the future of perfume as we know it. As the multibillion-dollar industry debates the potential of synthetic alternatives—which are easier to procure, control, and patent—global warming’s impacts aren’t making the case for natural scents more compelling. Drought, shifting seasons, and more frequent extremes of frost, rain, hail, and high temperatures are changing crop yields, ingredient quality, and even how much scent different plants produce. As those impacts continue, everything about how certain smells are made may need to be rethought.
Grasse is well-positioned to produce exceptional flowers because of its quality soil and delicate microclimate, in a hilly area that’s just the right distance from the Mediterranean.
At Switzerland-based Givaudan, one of the world’s largest fragrance houses, there’s particular concern about patchouli, a leafy member of the mint family. About 80% of the plant comes from the tropical island of Sulawesi in Indonesia, which in recent years has faced sudden and sporadic extremes of dry and wet weather. “With erratic dry-wet spells in 2020 and 2021, the survival rate of the plant and the distillation yield were lowered,” says Chee Ping Lee, Givaudan’s head of sourcing for Asia-Pacific.
There are also signs that global warming may be impacting ingredient quality. Alon Cna’ani, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and co-author of a rare paper on the topic, says there is “strong evidence to suggest that a changing climate — rising temperature — will affect the aromatics of plants.” Cna’ani found that the genetic makeup of flowers — the machinery that produces the aromatic compounds we recognize as “fruity” or “floral” — decreases at higher temperatures.
Likewise, in Italy, scientists pinpointed a “clear correlation” between a decline in the scent production of bergamot and extreme conditions like heat waves and droughts. Over 95% of global production of cold-pressed bergamot essential oil comes from Calabria in south Italy, where the climate is getting progressively hotter and drier.
Perfume of the Future
Since the late 1800s, the perfume industry has been looking to the lab to replicate or produce new scents—a trend that climate change could accelerate. As conditions in the flower fields become even less predictable and prices yo-yo in response, synthetic compounds produced in controlled environments can offer a cheaper and more reliable alternative for those looking for a consistent scent—and a consistent bottom line.
Synthetics come with their own environmental challenges. Many are byproducts of petroleum or paper and pulp—toxic, polluting, and hard to dispose of safely. But innovations in “green chemistry” are emerging to tackle those problems.
If you want consistency, it’s best to look for a nice ethical supplier of aroma chemicals.
Is natural good for nature?
It is important to know the reasons, why perfume house sourse from nature and why they choose science.
Synthetic molecules are also used in perfumes when a natural ingredient has been forbidden, such as animalistic ingredients – musks (from the chevrotin), castoreum (from the castor), ambergris (from the whale), leathery notes etc.
Some synthetic molecules have powerful perfuming qualities, such as Aldehydes for instance (principal molecule in Chanel 5, Arpège de Lanvin, L’Air du Temps de Nina Ricci, Opium de YSL, etc) or Praline (main molecule in Angel de Mugler, Coco Mademoiselle de Chanel etc) or even Oud wood (which mimics the scent of natural oud without the dangers of Oud that is poisonous and also extremely expensive).
Some synthetics are extracted directly from natural ingredients, such as Ambroxan, extracted from Clary Sage, Hedione or New Hedione, extracted from Jasmine…
The reasons for introducing the Science and High Tech molecules in perfumery are numerous :
* Creativity (synthetic molecules enable new effects and emotions),
* Respect of the environment (over exploiting the soil is leading to an environmental catastrophe, without mentioning the problems of water waste in natural production),
* Respect of the humans, as Science has enabled to design Eco and Human friendly molecules that are far more gentle than naturals.
The formulas by the perfume brand Élisire privilege natural ingredients as nature is at the center of the artistic attention by the Founder, Franck Salzwedel. So most of the ingredients used are natural or in the case of synthetics, extracted from nature (Ambroxan, Hedione, New Hedione, Oud wood etc).
Innovations.
Big fragrance houses are also looking to biotechnology to breed more climate-resilient plant varieties. Givaudan and Firmenich are experimenting with vertical farms, where controlled artificial environments can help sustain certain varieties or produce new ones. One Firmenich-backed vertical farm, Jungle, announced a new ingredient developed from Lily of the Valley flowers last year, and has dozens of other perfume plants in development.
Traditionalists are skeptical. lab experiments will never match up to the natural world. Flowers are the masters of making perfume — jasmine or rose just have that little chemical factory that blends it exactly right. People can’t do that; the replacement for the plant is not going to smell the same.
Yet the damage climate change is wreaking on natural scents — from quantity to quality — demands action.
For Grasse’s farmers, this means doubling down, recognizing the importance of natural ingredients — for perfumes, jobs and local economies — and putting money and support measures behind this. Along with a group of mayors from other perfume towns across Europe, they are on a mission to convince European policymakers to do just this.
“We’re looking to defend our tradition, our history, our culture — flower plant processing and natural products,” says Jerome Viad, a farmer from Grasse. “It’s about explaining that for us, politically, there are factors relating to agriculture, supply chains, employment, nature and the energy transition at stake.”
By Natasha White
