EP85. The truth about wild-harvested beauty

Now that naturals have become the norm for many beauty products, it stands to reason that the cosmetics industry is clamoring for interesting and exotic botanicals to make the latest and greatest claims for their formulations. Indeed, when you attend any cosmetics industry trade show, you tend to be bombarded with the hottest new plants found in the rarest pockets of the most far flung places around the world. But given that the beauty industry encourages us to consume endless personal care products, should we really be using that many rare and exotic plants? And if we do, should they be cultivated for us, potentially using land that could be used to feed people? Or should we be using wild populations of plants? As you'll remember from my recent podcast on whether essential oils can ever be sustainable, we discussed this very topic and it's one that I feel the beauty industry really isn't addressing properly yet. So what happens when beauty brands decide to go down the wild harvesting or wild sourced route for the plants in their formulations? How do we know that this is a sustainable way to source ingredients? One certification body called Fairwild is working hard to look after our global wild plant resources and the people that depend on them. In this episode, we're going to pick apart how the beauty industry can use wild plant harvesting and ask whether we're doing more harm than good in using wild plant resources for cosmetics. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, the podcast that challenges you to think about how you buy, use, make and sell your natural beauty formulations. We tackle topics that will make you think and encourage debate about green beauty with your friends, followers or customers. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmeyer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school Formula Botanica. We have thousands and thousands of students in over 175 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. So in today's episode I am joined by Emily King, who's the Business Engagement Officer in the Secretariat of the Fairwild Foundation, a non profit initiative with the mission to secure a fair and sustainable future for wild plant resources and people. She works with current and potential Fair Wild businesses to help them to make the most of their certification as well as working on wider communication around the importance of sustainable sourcing and the fair wild standard. We're going to talk about the sustainability of wild harvesting and how the beauty industry can embrace certification to make better choices in their supply chain. Hi Emily, welcome to the Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm great, thank you. I'm excited to be here and talk a bit more about sustainable cosmetics and wild plants.

Yes, and I'm thrilled to have you here. This is such a great topic. So let's first start with introductions. What is Fairwild and what led to the creation of the certification standard?

Yeah, so that's a great question. So Fairwild is a standard for sustainability and ethical trade of wild harvested plant ingredients really came about when there was not much going on in this sort of space in terms of looking at wild plant ingredients. So Fairworld started about 12 years ago now, and at the time there's really a lot of focus on organic, on fair trade, which are really, really great things, but they were more focused on cultivation of products. So things like bananas, coffee, cocoa. Not a lot of focus around things that you might actually be collecting from the wild instead. So where we might see more cosmetic ingredients coming. Also, those standards didn't really recognize. I mean, even if they could be applied to wild plant ingredient harvesting situations, they weren't really tailored for the sort of unique situations that we see there. So things such as it often being a very seasonal occupation, whereas for conventional agriculture, there might be something happening all year, it might be more smaller groups of rural people potentially quite marginalized. So often women in rural areas with very few other sources of income might be participating in this trade. And also tied up with a lot of traditional and cultural practices which sort of aren't recognized in those sort of standard sustainability schemes, but are really important and integral to the harvesting of wild plant ingredients. So fairworld was really created to recognize both that traditional knowledge and the importance of wild plant harvesting and trade for rural people and for local communities, but also the fact that without monitoring and without a care taken around this trade, there was a potential for a really negative impact on biodiversity, not just to the plant species, but also the landscapes they're being harvested from.

Wow, what a fantastic track record as well. Well, thank you very much for coming on today to talk about this. So let's go back to basic definitions then. What is a wild plant and how does fair wild define wild harvesting?

That is also another tricky one. I mean, you might think that it would be obvious. So either end of the sort of the sc, it is quite clear. So marigold grown in a field with inputs put into the production, so, you know, pesticides or fertiliser and so on, that's quite obviously not wild. I think most people would agree on that. And at the other end we have maybe Brazil nuts harvested from the Amazon, where there's very little development. It's sort of local. People lived in the area for a very long time and most people think, okay, that's quite clearly wild. But then in the middle we've got all this grey area. So we've got things such as nettle leaves which are growing near agricultural fields. We've got baobab fruit which is harvested from around trees growing near rural villages in Zimbabwe. We've got rose hips which are being harvested in Lesotho or maybe Chile, where they weren't there maybe hundreds of years ago, but they have been reintroduced and have been there for a long time now. Would we consider that wild or because they haven't been there for some sort of arbitrary amount of time, are we saying that actually they're not? So it is quite a complex area in the middle there. And we have put a lot of thought into this. We have some guidance notes for companies that are interested to learn more about how we maybe make decisions on whether something is considered to be within scope of fair, wild or not. And that looks at things such as the degree of management for the species that's being harvested. As I said, is it a native species or has it been introduced and if so, has it been naturalized to some degree and what is the impact on the original habitat and whether the population of that species is self sustaining and so on? Yeah, so it's a more complex question than you might originally think.

Yes, as I can. I can hear that. I mean, there's obviously a lot of gray areas in there, which is why it's obviously good that you guys have put so much thought into this, because this touches very much on the beauty industry, I can tell. So before we get into beauty, what are the biggest ecological challenges faced by these populations of wild plants and lichens and fungi as well around the world?

These species that are harvested for a range of uses. So beauty industry obviously, but also herbal tinctures, herbal tea and so on, they face the same pressures that all of biodiversity is facing. So that's things such as changing climates, increased rain, increased drought, temperature changes and so on. They also have pressures from land use change. So maybe it's clearance of area for agriculture, maybe it's putting in of a new road, more people moving in or out of an area. Pollution and also over harvesting of species is a very big problem for, for not just wild plants, but for biodiversity globally. So wild plants and funky and lichen aren't really an exception. But what the main threats are to each species will vary depending on what the species are. So it might be that for baobab trees in Zimbabwe is used for cosmetic oil, that climate change may be having an impact, but we might not be seeing it quite yet. It might be more we're thinking about change in land use or the incentives for conserving those trees. So Farewell really focuses on the threats caused by harvesting for trade. Knowledge that there are all those other threats as well. But it's also thinking about what is important to consider in terms of how can we address the threat caused by trade and overexploitation.

It's obviously not an easy question and not an easy answer, by the sounds of things. And it's something that the beauty industry is starting to talk about a little bit more, which is great. So let's move on to beauty then. So what has been the uptake of the Fairwild standard in the beauty industry? And is this a certification standard mainly for beauty brands selling finished products, or is this also for ingredient growers and suppliers?

Just to explain a bit about Farewell's history, just to put it in context. So as I mentioned, it's about 10 to 12 years now that Fairwild has been in operation as a standard and also as a certification scheme. And really where Fairwild started was with some pilot projects in Eastern Europe. So post conflict Balklands area was really the origin of their wild. So a lot of the original products that were certified were really Eastern European sourced herbs. And it's really only in the last sort of five years or so that we've really begun to break out of that original sort of area of focus and moving more into fragrance, cosmetics, oils and so on. So there are now a number of ingredients certified which have cosmetic applications. So for example, there's Peru balsam from El Salvador, frankincense from Somaliland, Baobab oil from Zimbabwe, rose hips from Serbia, recent actually, really excitingly, a jatamansi oil, so spikenard from Nepal. So has lots of aromatherapy associations and uses as well. Yeah, it is certainly a growing area. We maybe don't have as much history in terms of certified ingredients as some of the other sort of European herbs, as I mentioned. But it is also, I think, mirroring a growing interest from the beauty industry as well in terms of sustainability and traceability and ethics of where ingredients are coming from, is my feeling. I think this is mirrored in sort of research, market research as well, but that the beauty industry perhaps has been maybe further behind the curve in terms of thinking about sustainability and ethical sourcing than maybe the food and drinks industries. And I think that's changing. I do think it's changing though, and I think that's, that's going along with farewell, sort of increasing presence in this industry as well, and grow consumer awareness. You know, interesting clean beauty, really sort of looking more into what the ingredients actually are in cosmetics and beauty products and in general, sort of across the board, I think not just industry or sector by sector as well, but a growing general consciousness of the impact of purchasing decisions in our lives, on the planet we live on.

Absolutely. And it's interesting you raise that. I mean, obviously I've been talking about this a lot on the podcast recently. Beauty has suddenly woken up to the fact that sustainability is a thing and they need to really do something about it. And I'm not surprised that the uptake is increasing at Fairwild as a result of that as well, which is great to hear. So thinking about the way that you assess the supply of wild plants, what sustainability criteria does the Fairwild standard look at?

Yes, so the standards, just to differentiate a bit from certification. So the standard is for anyone that doesn't know, is what is behind certification. So the standard itself is freely available on the Fairworld website and businesses can be certified against that standard. So it's really for collection operation. So what we term collection operation. So that's the businesses at the green end, if you'd like to think of that, of the supply chain. So the ones that are really going out into habitats and harvesting plant ingredients, they can have an audit done that says, yes, we are meeting the criteria in the standard. And some of the criteria for sustainability in that. Well, actually, so I was going to answer about the ecological sustainability side, but actually there's a lot in there in terms of social, economic sustainability as well. So it's not just the plants and biodiversity, it's also about sustainability of trade for the people involved in it, long term business relationships and so on. So just focusing though on the ecological sustainability aspects, there's a few different things that are looked at. So there's an initial risk assessment done of the species that is undergoing certification and that aims to place the harvest of that species in a more global context. So it might look at what is the plant part that is harvested. So, you know, harvesting of a root will have a very different impact from berries or leaves. One will be maybe more impactful on the survival of that individual plant, the international threat status. So what is known about that species at a global level, a global trade trend and so on. That then informs what the businesses themselves do. So they are expected to come up with a resource assessment. So they'll look at what the population of that species is in their area, their specific area of harvest, and that will inform in turn a management plan. So they have to think about, okay, this is the stock of species that is in the area we wish to harvest from. And also more widely, what is really known in terms of what is sustainable volume of offtake of that species, considering what part it is we're wanting to harvest, what traditional local knowledge is there as well, that might inform that management plan. And there's more aspects as well. But they're the sort of key parts that need to be looked into and drawn up by the collection operation, that the business doing the harvesting to think about what is the impact of their operations and how can they make it more sustainable. And then that also has to be fed down to each of the actual individual people doing the collecting. So there's training required, resources that are supposed to be shared, and all of that is looked at during an audit as well, to really make sure it's not just sort of one person in a room, in an office maybe coming up with these things. They just stay on paper. But really they are living documents and living processes that feed down to all aspects of the supply chain.

Wow. It sounds like there's a lot of work involved, which is very impressive to hear. Following on from that, then thinking more about the cosmetics industry again, I'm sure our listeners are trying to think of of examples where this could be applied. And I know that you've worked with some beauty brands already. So could you give us one or two examples of cosmetic plants that Fairwild has assessed and helped create a more sustainable supply chain for?

Yeah, for sure. And so as I mentioned, I think earlier, there are a few different species. I mean, just to pick one to start with. So frankincense is a really nice one. So there's obviously a few different frankincense species. When the currently certified frankincense for Fairworld is supplied by a company called Neobotanica. So they are Fairworld certified for Bosnia, Wellia sacra from Somaliland. They are the first certified collection operation of any description in Somaliland. So that was a really exciting, exciting moment for Fair Wild. They do lots of things such as really getting to grips with the tree health and tree population in the harvesting area. So they look at, as I said, health of individual trees, what is the population size, what is the growth of that population? And that all informs their sustainable management plan. But then to complement that, they also do a lot of work with local rural people in terms of employment opportunities, fair wages, and so on. So there's employment of people in their local processing facilities, you know, sorting the resin and so on. And they also really emphasize the participation of women in that as well. And they're actually excitingly looking to expand the number of ingredients. So they started with a frankincense species and a myrrh species. That was two years ago now. And they're looking to expand in terms of the number of ingredients they often are certified. So other frankincense species are the myrrh species and also Gamma Arabic. So all of those have cosmetic applications. And it's really nice to see that. Well, frankincense especially. We've had other frankincense certified collection operations before. And more are coming through now, actually, because frankincense is getting so much more attention at the moment in terms of. Rightly so, globally, in terms of really growing awareness, not just scientifically, of the pressure on frankincense species and their resilience or sort of how much they can be impacted by collection, but also I think as an industry as well, there's more conversation around. Okay, this is awareness of this potential problem with unsustainable collection. We really need to focus on how we can have sustainable collection and how we can keep this great, really sort of charismatic, evocative species and product here for generations to come.

Yeah. Oh, gosh, I love frankincense so much. It's wonderful to hear you say that. I suppose, tying in with that, let's go a little bit controversial for a minute, because some people would argue that it's better to leave wild plants alone when it comes to the cosmetics industry, as our consumption of beauty products is out of control and inherently unsustainable. I mean, we touched on it earlier. One of my recent podcast guests, for instance, felt strongly that we already use so much land to grow beauty crops that we should leave pockets of biodiversity alone. So can wild plant populations really keep up with the demand of the beauty industry? And is the issue of overconsumption something that you take into consideration when certifying brands or ingredient suppliers for their sustainability initiatives around wild plant harvesting? I suppose frankincense is a good example there as well.

Yeah, and I think that's a really valid concern to be voicing. You know, there's no denying over consumption generally, not. Not just beauty industry is a real problem and the cause of a lot of the issues that we're facing in.

The world at the moment.

So yeah, I don't dispute that at all. What I would say in terms of the amount of the impact of, on biodiversity of wild harvesting is that that is where we, I mean I would say this is. I work for fairwell, but I, I really do believe that there is a role for sustainable use of biodiversity. One of the points about third wild is that it has minimal impact on the habitat. So it's not just about the individual plant species. You can't say, okay, we'll go in and harvest the resin from this frankincense species and we'll completely level the rest of the land. That tree is fine, but we're going to completely destroy the rest of the habitat. That is not how Farewell is supposed to work. We wouldn't pass an audit with that kind of approach. The collection operations have to also consider the wider habitat plants that they're harvesting from exist in. They have to think about the impact on keystone species, for example, and really take that all into account. And it's not just about taking the plant in isolation, as I sort of mentioned throughout this discussion. It's also about the people that are relying on them and the traditional multi generational impact of the relationship that they have with those plant species as well and how much harvesting might be integrated into their culture and traditions. I think there was a study out earlier this year talking about how many, I think it was languages are potentially going to die out because they are associated so closely with harvesting of ingredients from the wild. I think it was a. UNESCO might be making this up now. But yeah, it was definitely a study looking at how threatened sort of small scale culture is because of this association and loss of habitat and diversity. So it's really, I think, not just about saying, no, this is a no go area. We're just going to fence that off and leave it be. It's about thinking, okay, these practices already exist and they are maybe very important for the economy of those people that live there. And how can we make that the best it can be? So it's not just about, you know, clear cutting trees down or ripping everything up. It's about thinking, taking a more holistic approach to things and yeah, really sort of taking a mindful approach to it and thinking about, okay, how can we make it sustainable? How can we make it long lasting? Yeah, and think about over consumption as well. So it's not something that is sort of explicitly taken in, in terms of the end product, but within the standard as well. There is expectation that businesses will look at the demand from their customers. That's where the long term business relationships that I mentioned came in, things like quality requirements and so on. So there is expectation, there is this dialogue between the certified business and their customers in terms of how much do you actually need next year, how much can we deliver? And so the amount actually harvested doesn't differ too much from what they already have purchase commitments for, at least not without justification. So it really minimises that loss at the early stages of the supply chain as well.

Oh wow. Okay, that's fascinating. Okay, so what do you think then are the biggest challenges for the beauty industry when it comes to the harvesting of wild plants?

Yeah, so this is a big question. I guess it's, I mean, I think the first one for me is really awareness. So it's not just the beauty industry, it's all sort of sectors of industry and it might use wild plant ingredients and consumers as well. Actually just being aware actually while plants are in so many ingredients that we use every day and some brands do capitalize on this is wild aspect and integrate it into their, their marketing and communications and really sort of focus on that as the usp. But so many more brands do use wild plant ingredients and either that's not sort of celebrated and, and shared with their consumers or it's maybe something they're not even aware of. If, if they're maybe a smaller company and they're purchasing not directly from source but from a intermediary trader or processor, there might not be that dialogue necessarily. You know, if you just purchase from a catalog, especially for a startup, it can be quite difficult to really know ne all the ins and outs of where a product is sourced from if you're buying it from an aggregator. So I think awareness really is the first one and getting more awareness amongst consumers as well. So because with that awareness and even understanding that this is happening sort of leads into awareness of, okay, there are potential great opportunities here for sure in terms of unique ingredients, benefits for wild plants and people in terms of development and so on. But also thinking about, okay, well with that comes the flip side, which is the potential risks, exploitation, child labor, degradation of habitat and so on. And with that will come more interest in sustainable sourcing of ingredients. So I think, especially for startups, I would say that having those conversations is an important first step with whoever you're purchasing ingredients from. Really thinking about where do these ingredients come from? What can you tell me about the story? Especially because they'll often be a really amazing Marketing or sort of communications angle as well. It could be a really great, great USP thinking about not just plants which aren't necessarily like for the properties of the plants, it could be an interesting selling point, but of themselves maybe not necessarily as charismatic and engaging as a panda bear or an elephant, but actually a lot of so both panda bears and elephants do coexist with plant species that are used so the elephants and baobab go hand in hand. Giant pandas and schisandra so used in actually as a sort of detox ingredient, especially traditional Chinese medicine, but in other sort of uses as well. So there are these great stories that can be told and from using wild plant ingredients. So it's not just about digging in to try and find holes in your suppliers sourcing, but also about, you know, what great stories can we unearth and bring to light here?

I love it. So a lot of work ahead of us, but obviously Farewell is paving the way for us. So if people want to find out more about Farewell, where can they do so?

Well, we have a website which has a lot of information on it, but it's more of a starting point. So it sort of explains a bit about what Farewell is, some of the things we've discussed here. But the best way is to really get in touch directly if people want to know more. So our email address is on our website secretariatfairwild.org we also have webinars and guidance documents which are updated on our website. But also we have a newsletter where people, people can stay up to date on that. And one thing I'd like to leave with as well in terms of if there are businesses that interested in they've sort of been captured by what I've said here or we've discussed and are interested in actually using Farewell ingredients, get in touch certainly. But we do have a special we've launched this year a special way in smaller businesses. So startups or SMEs can sort of start their Farewell journey, but with much lower costs and administrative burden. So that means they can register to if they're using farewell ingredients in their products, they can register, put the label on their packaging, but they don't have to. They have much lower fees and they don't have to do some of the reporting that we would otherwise do just so they can start celebrating the journey and what fantastic stories these wild plant ingredients have.

Fantastic. And just to clarify, this is global as well, right?

Yes, it's global, yet there's no restriction with where Fairwild certification can be applied or which brands can use their wild ingredients.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, Emily. It's been really interesting chatting to you and yeah, thank you so much for taking the time out.

Well, thank you.

It's been great. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope it's given you some food for thought about the wild harvesting of plants used in our beauty formulations. I'd love to hear what you think about the whole discussion. Please do come and leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you and make sure you take part in the sustainable beauty polls and chats I run over on my Instagram channel. Lorraine Delmeier, thank you for joining Emily and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast on itunes or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica at Formula Botanica on Facebook, Instagram, Clubhouse, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn. Visit our website at formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.