EP204. Greenhouse Gloss - The Carbon Trust unmasks the beauty giants

The drive to sustainable beauty really has to come from the people who buy cosmetics, but I do sometimes wonder if shoppers are entirely ready for this. There's still a lot of confusion between the terms sustainable and natural, for instance, and people get hung up on concepts that sometimes don't really signify whether a formulation is actually sustainably made or not. As shoppers, Are we assessing the sustainability credentials of our beauty products correctly? Well, last week on the podcast I interviewed Joel Tasha about the work that he and his team are doing at Clean Hub, and what was so interesting was the discussion we had around the Clean Beauty survey they completed in 2023. One of the most fascinating questions for me in that survey was when they asked respondents to rank factors that they felt were most important when purchasing cosmetics, and the two most important factors chosen by respondents of the survey were 1 non toxic cosmetics and 2 cruelty free cosmetics. Sustainable packaging came third. But are these really the topics that we should be looking at when assessing the sustainability of our beauty products? Well, to answer this question, I'm going to run you through a very damning report written by the carbon Trust in 2023 titled Greenhouse Gloss. Is the beauty industry's commitment to tackling Climate Change more than skin Deep? I've been wanting to cover this report on the podcast since it was published, so I decided now is the right time. Settle in for some shocking statistics that shine a very negative light on the top 10 largest cosmetics brands in the world. And yes, I am going to name and shame them all. So this is going to be a fun episode. Hi, it's Lorraine Dallmer, chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. I host the Green Beauty Conversations podcast and these are my Green Beauty opinions in which I share my takeaways from the podcast interview we released last week and set you a challenge to make the green beauty sector a better place. If you want to be the first to hear all of my latest episodes, make sure you subscribe to this podcast. So let's dive straight into this Carbon Trust report and there is a link to it in the show notes so you can download your own PDF copy to read. The Carbon Trust assessed the available sustainability data provided by the 10 largest cosmetics companies in the world and for the avoidance of doubt, those are, yes, naming and shaming, L', Oreal, Unilever, Procter Gamble, Estee Lauder, Shiseido, Beiersdorf, LVMH, Cao Coty and Johnson and Johnson. And you'll be familiar with most of these companies I'm sure, as they dominate the shelves of every beauty store around the world. So the first finding in the report, which I think really goes to the heart of the problem, is that, and I'm going to quote now, companies in the beauty and personal care sector showed limited recognition and ownership of their direct role in causing and responding to climate change. It was much more common for companies to present themselves as part of the solution rather than acknowledge their historical and ongoing contribution to the problem. And I completely agree with this. I am so fed up with the rubbish that comes out of these big industrial cosmetic multinationals. And what's even more fun is that I know some of them listen to this podcast. So the report further concluded that most highlighted steps focused on reducing operational admissions rather than emissions generated from sourcing the raw materials to make personal care products, which apparently get this, represent about 30 to 50% of direct greenhouse gas emissions from the cosmetics industry. That's huge. And this was a theme that came back repeatedly throughout the Carbon Trust report, where they recognized that those 10 companies are doing good work in terms of tackling their operational impacts and emissions, but often failing to address the emissions from their raw materials, as well as, of course, the emissions from customer use. And I've highlighted this a couple of times here on the podcast in the past, because when you look at some of these sustainability reports created by the big cosmetics players, they often look more like a marketing report than an honest assessment of what actually needs to change. Now, when it comes to ingredients, apparently only one out of those ten companies had made a commitment to reduce their demand for natural resources, which is pretty shocking really. And only three companies had clear targets to physically eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, which really isn't great when you consider the immense impact that these 10 brands have on planet Earth. Another really interesting point raised by the Carbon Trust was the fact that not a single One of these 10 companies had an externally validated net zero target. They said in their report that emissions reports were often incomplete and didn't always include scope 3 emissions, which are the emissions generated by customers using the finished cosmetic products. In fact, out of the 10, only two companies assessed demonstrated a credible commitment towards addressing the significant emissions from consumer use of their products, as it said in the report. Now, I think I mentioned previously on the podcast about an interview with the CEO of Unilever who was asked recently, I think it was last year, how he was going to tackle Scope three emissions from consumer use. And he very honestly answered, I have no idea. That should terrify all of us. The Carbon Trust then further pointed out that some of these 10 companies showed an emissions increase rather than reduction, which is of course definitely not going in the right direction. So go and read the report for yourself as I've only pulled out a few important stats here and shared some highlights with you, but it really is worth seeing the full assessment. These are the impacts that the beauty industry is having on our environment. These are the impacts that we need to be caring about. I understand that it's easy to get blinded by what sustainability really means, particularly when the 10 largest industrial cosmetics players in the world aren't being as transparent as they should be about how far they have to go. But we can hold them accountable and we can vote with our wallets. We have that power. So my challenge to you for this week is to download your own copy of the Carbon Trust report on the beauty industry and see for yourself what I'm talking about. Then vote with your wallet and if you do continue to buy from any of these companies, tell them how they need to change. You may think that your words are falling on deaf ears, but when enough voices speak up loudly enough, we can make real change. And in the meantime, go and buy from some companies that are getting it right. I've interviewed so many of them here on the podcast and these are the pioneers in the world of sustainable beauty. So let's support them in that mission. Thank you for listening to my Green beauty opinions. Remember to visit the Formula botanica website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you haven't subscribed yet to the Green Beauty Conversations podcast, please make sure you do so now in your favorite podcast app. Leave me a five star review if you enjoy the conversations. I host and I'll be back soon with my next episode.