The world’s largest beauty and cosmetics company, L’Oreal, has made a landmark promise to remove forest destruction from the products they sell.

"Because I'm Worth It" is a catchy slogan coined 40 years ago by the French cosmetics company. It spoke about female empowerment and was in fact created by one of the few female copywriters in the industry.

But now we feel the slogan has taken on a whole new meaning.

Their commitment to cut forest destruction from their supply chains is a win for consumers and forests around the world.

We urge l’Oreal to guarantee their products are forest-friendly sooner rather than later and not wait till the 2020 deadline the company has set. If Ferrero can set a deadline for 2015, then so can other companies, L’Oreal included.

Deforestation for Palm Oil by Bumitama in Indonesia Excavators clear intact peatland forests and build drainage canals in an oil palm concession owned by PT Andalan Sukses Makmur, a subsidiary of Bumitama Agri Ltd.

There’s a good chance that you use palm oil everyday, without even knowing about it. It’s an ingredient in products as diverse as shampoo, toothpaste, chocolate, and detergent. It’s virtually everywhere. Plantations for palm oil sell their palm oil fruit to traders. And from these companies it’s sold to huge corporations that make products we find on our supermarket shelves.

To get this far has not been easy. And though you may not know it, it was certainly not possible without you.

This story starts nearly a year ago, when we began to investigate how Wilmar International, the world’s largest palm oil trader, was laundering dirty palm oil and selling it to major brands, like Gillette, Ferrero, Cadbury, L’Oreal and Clearasil.

We revealed how companies’ weak policies expose consumers to forest destruction, confronted companies at their offices, and contacted corporations the world over.

Then something interesting happened.

First Ferrero announced a detailed, ambitious policy to only buy forest-friendly palm oil. Then Mondelez (which makes Cadbury) followed with an announcement to start working on a similar policy.

And then we threw the spotlight on companies’ sourcing practices in the Tiger Challenge, showing how weak policies allow forest destruction to get into your products.

On 5 December, Wilmar announced that it would stop clearing forests and stop buying oil from companies that it knew were engaged forest destruction.

And now L’Oreal.

While you may not have sent an email to L’Oreal about their palm oil use, being part of Greenpeace meant that you didn’t need to. Just the possibility that you and millions of others around the world might take action was enough to persuade these companies to act now.

Backed by global people power, we were able to convince L’Oreal to hammer out a commitment that will, if implemented, protect forests.

That’s the kind of power you hold.

L’Oreal now joins Nestle, Unilever and Ferrero, which have committed to No Deforestation policies, and applies to all their brands such Maybelline, Garnier and Kielh's, to name a few.

We look forward to the day when L’Oreal can finally guarantee its products are totally free from forest destruction. In the meantime, we’ll keep pushing L’Oreal to guarantee forest-friendly products earlier than 2020. The forests can’t wait six more years.

L’Oreal’s commitment puts the heat on those who continue to drag their feet. Companies that produce brands such as Heads & Shoulders, Colgate and Clearasil must step up and commit keep up to date with how we intend to ramp up the pressure on companies that continue to drag their feet.

Areeba Hamid is a Forest Campaigner with Greenpeace International