Meet the elite group of Scandinavian brands that are taking the gold standard for green certification to the next level
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When it comes to eco beauty, the waters are murky. Your serum contains sustainable ingredients but comes in packaging that is hard to recycle because it is composed of a variety of complex materials, from plastic to mirrored glass and paper inserts. Your moisturiser is housed in post-recycled plastic but its first ingredient is ‘aqua’ when two-thirds of the world’s population is set to face water poverty by 2025 (something Vogue Scandinavia highlighted in its investigation into waterless beauty). All of which is hugely frustrating, not to mention confusing, for the consumer wanting to buy consciously.
Enter B Corp, a breath of fresh air in the beauty space, where words like ‘clean’, ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ are thrown around with abandon. Considered the gold standard for green certification bestowed on any product category, including beauty, B Corp was founded as a non-profit organisation in 2006 in the US. To bear the B circled logo is a rigorous process. Not just the ingredients and formulations are taken into account but the sourcing of raw materials, the packaging and its carbon neutral status are closely examined every three years; it’s also about how these companies treat their workers, their suppliers and the community at large.
Getty. Photo: Getty
The next-gen B Corp Beauty Coalition
In total, 3500 brands are now certified B Corp globally, including The Body Shop, Aesop, Davines, Sunday Riley and two Scandinavian brands: Skandinavisk and Rudolph Care. Raising the bar higher still, now these ‘B Beauty’ brands have formed a new European coalition to improve the sustainability standards of the beauty industry. Their mission is clear: to deliver ‘beauty for good’.
What this means in practice, is creating a platform where knowledge can easily be shared between companies. This, in turn, translates to best practices being shared by brands; help for beauty consumers to better navigate the green beauty category as well as triggering broader changes to improve the beauty industry’s environmental footprint.
“We have become increasingly uncomfortable with the social and environmental footprint of the beauty industry and concluded our respective solo efforts to enable positive change can be enhanced through a partnership of mutual commitment,” explains Davide Bollati, founding member of the B Corp Beauty Coalition and President of Davines, a brand made famous by A Single Shampoo. Its first completely carbon neutral product, this game changer is also 98.2 per cent biodegradable and made from vegetable and sugar cane packaging. “So, we decided to form a coalition to leverage our combined strengths and deliver tangible benefits to beauty customers, communities and the planet we share.”
Shaun Russell, founder of Skandinavisk, a boutique fragrance and bodycare brand, hopes the Beauty Coalition will be best placed to address four key issues. “These include ingredient sourcing and sustainability; greener logistics; packaging responsibility; consistent and clear external messaging that customers can understand and trust.”
We aim to match Copenhagen’s own target to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025
Shaun Russell, founder of Skandinavisk
In order to become a B Corp, Russell has become a trailblazer for responsible manufacturing in his adopted city of Copenhagen. “We partnered with the City of Copenhagen and their ‘Sustainable Baseline’ program to calculate our carbon footprint and investigate ways to reduce it,” Russell says. “In doing so, we aim to match Copenhagen’s own target to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.”
In order to realistically achieve this milestone, Skandinavisk reformulated its candles, switching from palm and soy waxes to sustainably farmed Swedish rapeseed wax instead. Additionally, any plastic tubes and pumps are made from renewably sourced and recyclable bioplastics.
Meanwhile, Rudolph Care is additionally certified with the Nordic Swan Ecolabel and the organic COSMOS Organic label to guarantee that its skin and hair care products live up to stringent environmental and health requirements when it comes to raw ingredients, working conditions and packaging. Then there’s the brand’s B Corps motto: “not only to be the best in the word, but to be the best for the world.” And you can’t say fairer than that.
