Post by account_disabled on Feb 22, 2024 3:56:20 GMT
Plastic pollution is a huge problem: more than one billion tonnes of plastic waste will end up in the oceans or landfills by 2040. Many industries have cooperated to help this problem continue to grow, however, the beauty industry has stood out as one of the largest contributors to plastic waste: a complex problem that has no simple solution. Plastic garbage as raw material One solution according to Mark Davis, who runs the Community Fair Trade program at beauty company The Body Shop , is to treat plastic trash as raw material. The Community Fair Trade program is an ethical sourcing initiative that was founded in 1987 and now accounts for around 25% of the company's ingredients budget, where the company sources ingredients such as shea butter from Ghana and items such as paper gift boxes from Nepal. Now Community Fair Trade has started sourcing waste plastic from Bangalore, India, to use in its packaging. Waste pickers in some developing countries make a living trading trash in an informal industry that can be dangerous and dirty. The Body Shop is working with sourcing company Plastics For Change to help it source plastic, while providing better conditions for workers. We need the best quality bottles, we need them at the right time and in the right place. And… this is how we work with ingredients like shea, Brazil nut, mango. Indeed, if you transpose the city of Bangalore to the rainforest, it is exactly the same method. You have a group of people and you need them to be organized.
You need them to know what good quality looks like and if they give you better quality you can pay them more money. Mark Davis, director del programa Community Fair Trade. Plastic sourcing like this is an initiative that has Bulgaria Mobile Number List taken a while to come to fruition: it took five years to build the supply chain and get to the point where the raw material met The Body Shop's needs, before it could become plastic granules converted into packaging. Recyclers needed to have a lot of support around business training. So… how do you build an expanded business? How do you manage cash flow through it? They had to have support around environmental and social certifications in addition to ensuring that they had decent working conditions. Mark Davis, director del programa Community Fair Trade. Changing customer preferences While sourcing initiatives like this are a positive option for companies, raw material suppliers ideally need to expand their customer base to avoid relying on a single buyer, as demand for ingredients can vary. «In short, cosmetics is a fashion business.
Customers may want to buy, for example, mango body butter this year, but next year it may not be what they want. “Generally, our customers are pretty stable in their preference for those ‘hero’ ingredients, but there is definitely volatility,” says Mark Davis. Demand for plastic may vary less than demand for ingredients, but The Body Shop guaranteed it would buy a certain amount of plastic in its first year. In 2020, it will purchase 500 tons through Plastics For Change and by 2021, that number will reach 600 tons. The Community Fair Trade program has sourced cocoa beans from Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana since 1996 and has since introduced suppliers there to other customers. From being your largest client, today we are less than 1% of your business. It was one of the first conversations that took place within The Body Shop, which is how can we make this an incubator process rather than something that will keep people working with us forever. The Body Shop has put Plastics For Change in contact with competitors and also Ikea, and they are already making agreements with them on how they can use types of plastics. Mark Davis, director del programa Community Fair Trade. Long term planning Deciding how to approach sourcing and sustainability more broadly is a complex issue that beauty companies of all sizes are taking on, according to chemist Barbara Oliso, founder of The Green Chemist Consultancy .