💫 Spark Spotlight: Skincare

This is a special edition of our newsletter from Bemari where we talk about how to not get lost in sustainability.

This monthly edition is about how to focus the energy where it matters and not get distracted by “shiny” things in various industries. Every month, we invite practitioners to share their insights on what creates the most impact and positive change in their sector.

Where energy flows, impact shows: Skincare edition. 

Where does sustainability show up in your area of work?

The skincare industry has really clear and direct impacts on all three aspects of the triple planetary crisis, and being a very competitive marketplace, sustainability is a big business, often being used as a highlight lucrative marketing tool. 

In terms of our impacts on pollution, the industry produces over 120 billion pieces of packaging each year, and much of the sustainability agenda within the industry has focussed on reducing the amount of this that enters the environment as plastic waste (e.g. the work of the British Beauty Council Sustainable Beauty Coalition).

In terms of the climate crisis, skincare product produce emissions as heat and energy is used to make both ingredients and products (much like other manufacturing industries), with additional emissions associated with the logistical impacts of transporting ingredients and finished goods around the world. Many businesses are now at least aware of these reasonably easy to quantify impacts, and many are actively trying to either reduce their carbon emissions or to offset those they produce.

In terms of biodiversity loss, the skincare industry has large impacts in this area as a result of the reliance on natural ingredients The direct impacts can be broken down into six main areas: crops that cause habitat loss e.g. palm oil and cocoa butter, the use of rare or threatened species e.g. frankincense, land take associated with low yielding crops e.g. essential oils, population decline associated with wild harvested ingredients e.g. juniper, harvesting from biodiversity hotspots e.g. buriti and guayusa, and natural ingredients that are sourced from remote areas with long and difficult to trace supply chains.

In addition to these, there are the indirect impacts such as those associated with the end use of the product (with the majority of product entering the water system), land take associated with infrastructure, as ell as the impacts of packaging (e.g. paper products/ boxes) and distribution. It’s these direct and indirect impacts on the biodiversity crisis that I feel the industry is currently less aware, and we are perhaps falling behind in this area compared to other natural resource reliant industries e.g. mainstream agriculture and the food industry.

What are the main sustainability misconceptions in your area?

1. That “natural” means “good for nature”! The word “natural” is often associated with sustainability in our industry, for example you’’ often find phrases such as “our products contain 100% natural ingredients” under the sustainability credentials tab of a website, or images of nature being used to market a product. However, without further clarification about the way these natural ingredients are grown or sources, there is no reason to think that natural ingredients are any better for the environment than any other crop. This is especially true of ingredients that are grown using traditional agricultural systems, with agriculture of course being one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss.

2. A common misconception that reducing impacts on the natural world can be considered biodiversity “gains” - for example reducing palm oil use. When it comes to the biodiversity crisis, limiting our impacts isn’t enough, we all need to start thinking about how we can have a net positive effect if we really want to bend the curve, and I don’t think that the industry has quite grasped this yet.

What are the key things you wish the energy & resources of the industry were focused on?

I wish that our industry would wake up to the amazing opportunity we have before us to have positive impact on the nature conservation. For example, skincare ingredients are (in general) required in much lower quantities than food products and are sold to a higher price, and therefore we have an opportunity to produce them under alternative agricultural models. Nature-positive and regenerative farming methods enable us to produce agricultural products in a way that has a positive impact on the biodiversity crisis. Although the low yields associated with such systems may be unsuitable for products required in vast amounts, we are able to implement such methods for non-food agricultural products that have smaller markets. Another opportunity is an alternative model for producing wild foraged natural ingredients, which could be sustainably harvested from secondary habitats restored from exhausted agricultural systems. 

The problem we have is that product from individual farms/ suppliers are bought by wholesalers before being mixed and sold to manufacturers, so its really difficult to trace ingredient provenance back to its source. Until we are able to do this, brands are unable to select nature positive natural ingredients over those that are having a negative impact on biodiversity. There is currently no single certification system that is recognised industry-wise for ingredients that are grown using nature friendly farming methods and i think this is an important, yet currently missing piece of the puzzle.

What resources would you recommend people to read / listen to learn more?

• The Sustainable Herbs Programme (part of the American Botanical Council) produces some brilliant material on this subject, I particularly enjoy their Webinar Toolkit Series

• The Factsheet from the Business and Biodiversity Campaign on the subject

What is your favourite example of a positive change / impactful action that you have recently seen (in your sector)?

I think the industry has made huge leaps and bounds when it comes to reducing plastic waste, so that’s a huge win. Packaging refill schemes are becoming more commonplace alongside the use of recyclable packaging, so that’s been rally good to see.

My favourite example of positive change has to be the multinational group L’Occitane however, who has committed to producing 100% of their raw materials through regenerative and sustainable agriculture by 2025. I really hope that this is a sign of the industry as a whole beginning to widen its understanding of what sustainability means, and that we see more positive examples like this in the future.

Bemari is a B Corp certified impact consultancy helping businesses accelerate the just transition towards more restorative and regenerative practices. We can help you evaluate your environmental impact and support your transition to nature positive and regenerative business practices. Here is what we offer and how we do it. We also offer training to support your transition.

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