The escalating climate crisis is shifting many people’s purchasing patterns and this extends to the $500 billion dollar global beauty industry which is grappling with a range of sustainability challenges across product manufacturing, packaging and disposal.
Strategy and consulting firm Simon Kucher’s Global Sustainability Study 2021 found 60% of consumers around the world rated sustainability as an important purchase criterion, and 35% were willing to pay more for sustainable products or services.
This shift in consumer preferences has propelled many beauty brands to set environmental goals: to move away from single-use and virgin plastics, provide recyclable, reusable and refillable packaging and offer more transparency around products’ ingredients so customers can ascertain how “green” their purchase is.
However, consumers still struggle to understand the sustainability credentials of many products, according to the British Beauty Council. This is because the industry’s clean-up efforts have been inconsistent, and fall short of making a recognizable impact in the absence of collective goal-setting, global strategy and standardized regulations.
Ingredient and branding transparency
There is no international standard for the beauty industry on how much product ingredient information to share with customers — or how to do so. Brands can set their own rules and goals, giving rise to confusion and “greenwashing,” where sustainability claims are often touted but not substantiated.
Companies often use marketing language like “clean beauty” to make it seem like their products are natural, for example, when they may not actually be organic, sustainable or ethically made.
“The term ‘clean beauty’ has become quite dangerous. It’s used to sell more products,” according to British Beauty Council CEO Millie Kendall, who added that such buzzwords are losing traction in the UK as British customers wise up to their shortcomings. “Customers need better marketing information and…
