Sustainable cosmetics – here to stay?

The latest entry in this game, sustainability, has suddenly become a hot topic in the beauty and personal care industry. The trouble is that everybody has a different definition of sustainability, and few seem to be able to agree on how to ensure that our industry and consumers are still here in another 100 years. But sometimes just following common sense and doing things simply can take you a long way. Here is our proposal for making sustainable cosmetics.

Natural and ecological standards – only the first step towards sustainability

Several standards regulating organic, ecological and natural cosmetics have been proposed over the years in different markets. Each of them starts with a concern for the environmental impact of the industrial exploitation of our natural heritage and proposes different ways for reducing the damage caused by our activities. The difficulty of agreeing on standards reflects the difficulty of assessing the environmental burden of industrial activity in a few parameters. Organisations such as ECOCERT, Soil Association, BDIH and others have tried to agree on definitions and standards that make it possible to formulate acceptable cosmetics and personal care products while minimising the environmental impact of the whole value chain. The various certifications and labels are today seen as an important and valuable way for communicating with consumers, even though the average consumer often feels at a loss when comparing the different standards. However, the standards today are not complete in assessing the full impact in terms of sustainability. One definition of sustainability goes back to the Brundtland commission (1987) which states that: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In its expanded form this definition covers not only environmental sustainability but also social and economic dimensions. As any standard covering all three aspects will be complex, no effort has been successful so far to create a standard for sustainable development. This leaves the field open for the industry to define how sustainability in the beauty and personal care industry should be interpreted.