Earth Day 2023: Beauty leaders on the importance of sustainable business practices

Ahead of Earth Day on 22 April 2023, TheIndustry.beauty spoke to a variety of beauty business leaders about how they champion sustainability in their business, why this is important, and what advice they would give to brands looking to improve their sustainability.

Natalia Agathou, Sustainability Director at L'Oréal

How is L’Oréal a sustainable business?  

I joined L’Oréal almost two years ago, and one of the elements that attracted me most was its purpose-led mission and how the company is putting sustainability at the heart of its business and brands. L’Oréal has been on its sustainability journey for over 40 years now, and I believe the business has taken great steps. This includes our L’Oréal For The Future programme, which sets out ambitious and science-based targets for 2030, helping to tackle some of the major challenges that our planet is facing. For me, programmes like these coupled with tangible and collective action and results, is what sustainability is all about.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices? 

Any business, no matter what sector, and indeed every individual, needs to adopt sustainable practices – protecting the planet is a collective responsibility. The beauty industry in particular is in a great position to reach consumers and empower them to adopt more sustainable practices. At L’Oréal, we consider our responsibility not only for our own activity but for our entire business ecosystem, including our partners, suppliers and consumers.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

It is so important to bring your people on the journey with you by empowering every team member to be part of sustainability efforts. When I joined L’Oréal, I set up ‘Sustainability Teams’ with members from each of our 35 brands. I feel passionately that sustainability should be embedded in every role and function of the business, and one of the first steps in achieving this is upskilling teams to improve sustainability literacy.

Anabel Kindersley, Owner of Neal's Yard Remedies

How is Neal’s Yard Remedies a sustainable business?

For the last 40 years, we have placed planet and people at the heart of everything we do. We use nature’s finest herbs and botanicals to create effective, luxurious and award-winning health and beauty products that support our customers’ wellbeing naturally. This approach extends right across the business, from our eco-factory and gardens in Dorset to our trusted network of ethical suppliers of natural and organic ingredients, to our conscious packaging choices – the list goes on.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

Right now our planet is at crunch point, so it’s crucial that businesses understand their impact. The products we purchase all originate from somewhere, and it’s up to us as businesses to take responsibility from the start to the end of that journey. Customers are more aware than ever of environmental issues and are actively demanding transparency from brands, and it’s brilliant to see that this demand has encouraged many brands to move towards more sustainable business practices.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Listen to your customers. They are more environmentally savvy than ever before, and are demanding products that are in line with their ethics. Collaborate with suppliers. It’s so important to build a trusting relationship with suppliers to ensure that they are also implementing sustainable practices. Work with other brands, share knowledge, reach out. Go for third party certification, join the Sustainable Beauty Coalition. After all, we are only going to make real change happen if we all do it!

Matt Martin, General Manager at Davines UK & ROI

How is Davines a sustainable business?

Sustainability is a two-pronged approach of choosing ingredients and raw materials without depleting them, as well as minimising waste and impact. Davines are proud to have made this a core value since the very beginning. We recognised over 30 years ago that beauty and sustainability go hand-in-hand. This inspires all of Davines’ policies and projects, including product formulation and design, company ethics and salon education.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

We simply have no choice! The founding values of Davines are ethics, beauty and sustainability, three interdependent pillars that form the foundation of how we see the world. Our goal is to do our best for the world, creating a good life for everyone through the values that guide our actions. Sustainability is about the responsibility that we owe to ourselves, to the people around us and to the planet.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Think about why you want to make the change and decide if you’re truly committed to invest the time, money, energy and resources to do it and then make a start! Share the “why” of the changes you’re making, get buy in from all stakeholders. Sustainability is a journey rather than a destination and the ability to measure impact will evolve and so will your approach.

Dr Stefan Siemer, Head of Sustainability at Weleda

How is Weleda a sustainable business?  

Sustainability is at the heart of Weleda. We have taken a number of measures over the last five years to improve our ecological and social impact, such as B-Corp certification, reducing our carbon footprint, and increasing the recycling content of packaging. From cultivation and harvesting, to processing and delivery, our operations are as eco-friendly and respectful as possible, and we also work with many suppliers and farmers on a long-term basis to help them secure their livelihoods.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

Every company is responsible for the ecological and social consequences of its own economic activity, and this is even more true for beauty brands – whether that’s for the interest of customers or for internal stakeholders and employees. Take the UK market for example, 9 in 10 shoppers believe sustainability and ethics-related considerations are important when buying beauty products. This presents a really exciting opportunity for beauty brands to implement revolutionary sustainable business practices for the greater good, and taking their customers on the journey with them.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

The two major challenges facing all companies are climate protection and the circular economy with brands constantly looking at how they can produce more efficiently, consume less energy, and increase the use of renewable sources. For cosmetics companies specifically, there are the added challenges of the use of raw materials and supply chain management in order to promote biodiversity, soil health and fair supplier relations. All this costs money, so a productive and transparent discussion with shareholders is essential. Brands who are committed to sustainability should not be at a competitive disadvantage for doing so. That is why it is also important to stand up for fair economic policy conditions together with other companies.

Michelle Feeney, Founder of Floral Street

How is Floral Street a sustainable business?

With a 120 million units of beauty packaging produced every year, I honestly doubted whether I should bring more products into the world. However, I decided to make Floral Street a beacon for change with core values of environmental consideration right from the beginning. The way the beauty industry works is ‘more is more’ – more launches, more product categories, more lavish packaging - but my ethics have always been ‘less is more’ which is the responsible and modern way of building a business.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

More than ever before beauty is being seen as a major business opportunity for investors. Markets are growing and highly populated countries are increasing demand. This is good in so many ways and brings opportunities, but the amount of beauty waste this creates is unacceptable. I believe the industry should come together, working as a collective to evolve sustainable packaging solutions, ensure responsible sourcing and put consistent standards in place to help guide consumers on better ethical choices. This should be the major goal.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Find the right suppliers and partners that can help you – you can’t do it alone. When I founded Floral Street, I chose to partner with those that share my ethos and principles. They are experts in their fields and have helped guide us along the way. For example, one of our challenges is that sometimes in a mechanism there is no alternative to using a tiny piece of plastic. So, as a responsible brand we have chosen to ‘off-set’ this via CleanHub, a company dedicated to free the planet from plastic pollution.

Matt Kennedy, Founder of Fussy

How is Fussy a sustainable business?

By being fussy about everything in our mission to banish single-use plastic from your bathroom. Starting with our refillable natural deodorant that actually works. People want to make the more sustainable choice but often that comes at a sacrifice. It is fundamental to our approach that our sustainable products not only look better than their counterparts but work better too.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

Brands have a responsibility. They bombard people with adverts often looking to profit from people’s hard earnt money. If brands are going to do that, then they need to do it responsibly by promoting sustainable choices and practises and also by solving a genuine problem for people. Beauty brands in particular are one of the main producers and polluters when it comes to single use plastic. We, as brands, have a responsibility to improve how we operate and set the standard that others should follow.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Start with your product or service and build from there. If it isn’t sustainable, you can do all the offsetting or calling yourself ‘carbon negative’ you like but the reality is you're not and consumers are more and more switched on so it’s a risky game to play.

Anna Brightman, Co-founder of UpCircle

How is UpCircle a sustainable business?  

We offer truly differentiated products that are forward thinking, planet friendly, high performance and accessibly priced. We upcycle over 20 different by-product ingredients from varied industries into our skincare formulations. Our products are also made in the UK by people instead of machines. This enables us to monitor the process closely to ensure that the end result is high quality and also enables us to reduce our energy consumption as a business.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

One third of all food in the UK is wasted, yet nearly one third of people have a skincare routine. That’s one huge opportunity to save the planet through skincare – we want more brands to join us in our mission! From a planet perspective upcycling has to be the future of beauty, but also from a brand perspective it should be. People often believe that a brand’s focus on environmental concerns means that they’re less focused on skincare performance and efficacy. Skincare products can be both good for the environment and good for your skin.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Partner with suppliers and manufacturers who truly share this goal, it’s obvious when they do. Take our manufacturers for example, they take great efforts to promote and protect nature on the farm where they’re located, using minimal pesticides and planting wildflower. They’ve also secured funding in our own research project via Farming In Protected Landscapes and are trying to develop a method to encourage carbon sequestration via natural and native microbiology in the soil.

Susanne Kaufmann, Founder of Susanne Kaufmann

How is Susanne Kaufmann a sustainable business?

We've always championed sustainability. From day one, we've used solar power to produce many of our products, and have always sourced our ingredients and packaging materials with a local-first approach. As part of our ongoing commitment, we recently updated our packaging. We've made it simpler, eliminating the need for labels and instead printing directly onto recycled glass jars and bottles with sustainable inks. This ensures the packaging can be recycled again and again after it has been used. Also, our production house is 15 minutes from our office in Bezau, Austria. This reduces transportation emissions significantly.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?

As businesses, it’s simply our duty to protect where we take from. We have to be socially and environmentally committed to help preserve the planet for future generations. Not only do we need to respect nature, we also need to meet the needs of today’s consumer who cares about how their products are made. And above all, we have to be transparent and honest.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

A strong sense of responsibility and transparency have always been at the heart of our brand. I would advise to always consider the end-to-end approach. Focus on how and where your materials are sourced, where are your products produced and what alternative solutions can help reduce emissions both when producing and transporting. From local sourcing to reducing packaging waste, there are small, yet effective ways brands can improve their business practices that have a long-lasting impact.

How is Kankan a sustainable business?  

Kankan has been built from the ground up with sustainability at its core, and with the circular economy as our North Star. We have modelled the way of use around the principles of the circular economy - eliminate waste, circulate products and materials, and regenerate natural systems.

Why do you think it’s important for beauty businesses to implement sustainable practices?  

It’s important for all businesses to consider their impact. However, when you're in an industry that is about feeling good and looking good, I think there is danger to prioritise this over all else. We know how important nature is to our wellbeing and feeling good and so putting this front and centre in our products was critical.

What advice would you give to businesses looking to improve their sustainability?

Audit and acknowledge where you are now. Set clear ambitions as to where you want to go, making them actionable and achievable. Then share your wins and your failures - we all need to be learning from each other so we can move forward faster. The main thing is to remember it’s not a linear progression. Don’t get overwhelmed at the scale of the project.