How to Be a Sustainable Beauty Brand: Emma Lewisham Review AD | Lab Muffin Beauty Science

hi it’s michelle from lab muffin 
beauty science here chemistry phd  
cosmetic chemist skin care nerd and 
today i’m talking about sustainability
sustainability and environmental impact is 
a huge topic everywhere these days and it’s  
always tricky to talk about it’s obviously 
something that the vast majority of us care  
a lot about but a lot of companies are 
approaching it in a way that’s easy to  
market but doesn’t make a lot of scientific 
sense there’s a ton of greenwashing going on  
and you’ll have seen me debunk greenwashing 
myths before in my videos and on instagram
today i’m going to be talking about a brand 
that i think are approaching sustainability  
in a really holistic innovative and transparent 
way emma lewisham this video is sponsored by emma  
lewisham they gave me early access to information 
about their innovations but as always these are my  
genuine opinions as we go through it all hopefully 
you’ll see why i decided to work with them
emma lewisham is a high-end natural 
skincare brand from new zealand  
i personally don’t really care if the products 
i use are natural or synthetic as long as they  
work well and emma lewisham products do work 
really well which i’ll talk about a bit later  
but first let’s talk about the really cool 
work they’ve been doing in sustainability
i think there’s this pattern in how the 
beauty industry tends to do sustainability  
brands often point to one small thing 
they’re doing and claim to be sustainable  
and then that

seems to be it they tell you
nothing about the rest of their business
and a lot of the time that one thing seems to
be environmentally friendly at first but then
isn’t actually that good
when you look deeper into it
emma lewisham approach sustainability
in a much more holistic way with a
carbon positive circular designed business model
let’s start with carbon positive this
is kind of confusing carbon positive
carbon negative and climate positive
all pretty much mean the same thing
more greenhouse gases are being removed than
being emitted generally this is done by the
business measuring their emissions and then
offsetting them by investing in projects that
remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
offsets can be controversial and misleading
sometimes offsets can act like a license
for businesses to keep polluting as much
as they want as long as they pay a small fee
and then still look environmentally friendly
and it’s impossible to offset all of our current
emissions reductions still have to happen
emma lewisham make it clear that reducing
emissions is their primary focus here they
aim to eventually have nothing left to offset
they are the first business to be certified
climate positive by toitu envirocare they’re a new
zealand government-owned science-led environmental
organization the way this certification
works is very comprehensive and quantitative
to be certified climate positive a business
needs to firstly measure all their direct and
indirect emissions across their value chain
this obviously includes all the emissions
produced when they’re consuming energy to
make their products but also for producing
and transporting raw materials transporting
the finished products to customers and stores
making the product packaging and dealing with
the packaging after the products being used
the company has to commit to reducing their
emissions to line up with the paris agreement
goals this includes working with suppliers
to reduce emissions outside of the company’s
direct control these supply chain emissions
are often many times higher than the company’s
direct operational emissions their progress gets
monitored every third year to make sure this is a
continued effort the company offsets the remainder
plus at least 25% then finally the company has to
invest in projects that help the wider sector
or society decarbonize make a just transition
or adapt to climate change impacts and this is
set at at least 75 percent of the offset amount
unsurprisingly there are lots of different
strategies that emma lewisham use to get to
this stage and any of them would probably
make a great marketing story on their own
for example they use 100% renewable energy in
manufacturing their products and their boxes
as well as powering their offices
every product has a carbon emission
score they plan to halve these by 2023
and have them at virtually zero by 2030
the biggest piece of the pie though is packaging
here’s where the circular model comes in packaging
is the biggest source of carbon emissions in the
beauty industry it accounts for an estimated 70%
on top of this there’s the waste issue the
beauty industry uses a lot of highly complex
components in packaging because a lot of formulas
especially highly active formulas are unstable
without things like pumps and opaque containers
but this means a lot of it is too expensive to
recycle and if you just chuck it in your normal
recycling bin it ends up in landfill anyway
the result is that most beauty packaging isn’t
recycled even if it claims to be 100% recyclable
to solve these issues emma lewisham have
created their own circular system this new
packaging produces 74% less emissions than their
old single-use packaging all of their products
are refillable most products come in jars there
are three airless pump jars and one regular jar
all of these use refillable pods that
slot into a base jar and top which
are designed to be used over and over the
pods are made from post-consumer recycled
plastics so it financially supports
the recycling of other containers
the rest of the products come in glass bottles
that are refilled with pouches that means that
you still get the benefits of glass packaging
but without having to ship that heavy fragile
container back and forth as many times that means
less emissions and lower risk of product loss
the circular part of this is that emma lewisham
accept back all of their packaging at no cost to
their customers through their emma lewisham
beauty circle which is available worldwide
once you collect enough empty containers
to make the shipping emissions worth it
you mail them back to emma lewisham free
of charge recycling is the last option
it requires more energy than reusing when a
container can’t be used again emma lewisham
pay to have a recycle through terracycle
a specialty recycler currently 79% of
their packaging can be sterilized and refilled
only the pouches can’t and these are recycled
this whole system is really cool and well thought
out but i think the thing that impressed me the
most about this is that emma lewisham are making
all the intellectual property associated with it
available publicly this is so other brands can
take advantage of their investment especially
smaller brands which wouldn’t have the financial
ability to switch to more sustainable practices
otherwise this includes their sterilizing
processes how they deal with recycling and returns
packaging supply info take back procedures
carbon calculation guides as well as the
designs for their refillable packaging each
of their molds cost ten thousand dollars to
develop so it’s not a cheap process a lot of
things in the beauty industry are kept very
secret so this is really unusual and i think
it really speaks to their real commitment to
sustainability not just for marketing their own
products as better than their competitors but
to actually make a real change in how the
beauty industry works they’ve also been
recently endorsed by dr jane goodall the
chimpanzee researcher and environmentalist
onto the products i’ve mentioned this
a few times before one of the big
issues with eco-friendly brands is that a lot
of the time the products don’t work as well
as other products on the market and this is
especially the case with products that only
use natural ingredients and if the products don’t
work well people don’t buy them which means they
end up having a limited environmental impact
because they just can’t get any market share
but emma lewisham have cult
status products even without
that environmental aspect they’ve also
hired an independent testing lab to perform
in vitro lab studies on cells as
well as clinical studies on actual
human skin to make sure their products are
effective the details are on their website
a side note emma lewisham did start off as a brand
that marketed themselves as clean but they’ve
changed their focus radically partly because they
watched my content i was reluctant to work with
them at first because of their clean marketing
even though their environmental initiatives and
their products sound really cool but i think
they’re genuinely trying to fix that part of
their marketing every time i go to their website i
see less and less stuff that i have an issue with
emma lewisham are best known for their highly
active natural products their most famous product
is probably the skin reset this is a brightening
serum for people with hyperpigmentation issues
it has the super popular ingredient niacinamide
or vitamin b3 as well as a patented stem cell
extract that’s been found to have really
interesting activity in vitro there are also
a bunch of hydrating ingredients like prickly
pear and sea buckthorn oil edelweiss extract
and hyaluronic acid skin reset was developed
when emma was looking for an alternative to
hydroquinone to use when trying for a baby
hydroquinone isn’t recommended when you’re
pregnant skin reset been tested on melanocyte
cells against nine other competitor serums
it was the only one that was found to be active
but without also killing the cells obviously the
way that products work on your skin isn’t the same
as how they work on cells in a dish but it’s a
promising sign skin reset has also been tested on
people’s skin after 12 weeks 88% of participants
said they noticed no new hyperpigmentation
77% rated it as effective at reducing
hyperpigmentation the big reason skin reset
is so popular is that it’s really gentle while
still being effective this is my favorite product
from the range i get a lot of pigment after i have
acne and almost every brightening serum i have is
irritating apart from my niacinamide products this
has niacinamide with a bunch of other stuff as
well and i don’t need to use a moisturizer with it
emma lewisham’s other really famous product
is the supernatural 72 hour cream this is an
intensely hydrating night cream with anti-aging
actives that help with skin firming and texture
the star anti-aging ingredients are pecutial and
alaria esculenta seaweed extract much like with
skin reset these don’t cause as much irritation
and sensitivity as a lot of other anti-aging
actives tend to do and again there are lots of
other really moisturizing ingredients too like
saccharide isomerate a super effective humectant
that holds onto water and gives skin prolonged
72-hour hydration it shows up in a lot of emma
lewisham products again supernatural out performs
a lot of leading luxury anti-aging skincare
products in in vitro cell studies and it has
impressive clinical results as well i really
enjoyed this cream over winter it has a really
rich texture that spreads over skin easily so
you don’t need a lot to hydrate skin really well
there’s also the supernatural face oil
this has anti-aging plant ingredients
like pecutial and swertia chirata extract
they’re in a really luxurious oil base
that’s full of linoleic acid from
rosehip oil and kalahari melon oil
there’s also the illuminating brighten your day
cream this has plant extracts with vitamin c
and ahas yes you can use hydroxy
acids during the day as well as
hydrating saccharide isomerate and
ceramides the illuminating exfoliant
is a creamy hydrating wash off product
with jojoba wax beads and hydroxy acids
the illuminating oil cleanser is lovely and
rich and melts away makeup really easily
skin shield is an spf 30 zinc oxide sunscreen
unfortunately like most other zinc oxide products
there is a slight white cast with this otherwise
it’s really nice it has a moisturizing texture
and lots of active and hydrating ingredients
the products are all really luxurious they do have
a botanical based fragrance which is a bit on the
stronger side pretty typical strength for natural
skin care but if you’re used to more clinical
brands then it might be a bit of a change
so overall i’m really impressed with this
system i think emma lewisham have done
a lot of amazing work in developing natural
skincare that’s really effective and then
also this incredible carbon positive business
model the refillable packaging and the systems
for making sure customers can easily complete
the circle is really well thought out a lot of
circular systems and beauty fail because that link
is missing it needs to be as easy as possible for
consumers to do their part and on top of that
sharing the ip as well is just really fantastic
there’s so much that’s not transparent in the
beauty industry it’s really hard to work out
what brands could or should be doing especially
for small companies that are just starting out
i think a lot of us are getting
pretty frustrated with how the
beauty industry tends to claim as
being environmentally friendly by
pointing to small isolated actions that aren’t
particularly well thought out or evidence-based
but i think emma lewisham is a good example
of how a beauty brand can operate differently
and i hope other brands can take inspiration from
this and re-examine how they run their operations
i’ve linked a bunch of resources about
emma lewisham’s products and systems below
i’ve also got more info on the carbon positive
certification like subscribe nerdification bell
follow me on instagram check out my blog
and i’ll see you next time to nerd out more