Weleda
WeledaConsidered the original green beauty brand, Weleda was started in Switzerland in 1921. The company uses many precious and delicate ingredients, such as essential oils and plant oils, and the NATRUE-certified range of natural and organic cosmetics is 100% microplastic-free and 100% liquid plastic free. So Weleda’s packaging has to offer more protection than many conventional beauty products made with synthetic preservatives and polymers.
Depending on what the product needs, balanced with consumer needs, Weleda uses different packaging solutions made of glass, aluminium or plastics. Weleda is constantly working to make packaging even more sustainable, with less waste and using more recycled materials, working towards a sustainability goal for 2022 that at least 65% of the weight of any plastic packaging must come from recycled plastic sources or bioplastics. The aim is to steadily increase this year on year as new technologies and packaging designs become available.
Currently 46% of Weleda packaging is made from recycled materials. For example Weleda’s iconic green bottles are made from 85% recycled glass, and Weleda’s transport packaging and sturdy brown boxes are made from 100% recycled board.
Sometimes plastic is preferable, for example for shower products where glass is not suitable. Lighter plastic also packaging means a lower carbon footprint when transporting products. Weleda’s recyclable roll-on deodorants are made from 70% post consumer recyclate that has been carefully sourced from British milk bottles. This means manufacturing less virgin plastic. Weleda’s Baby range bottles are currently made 50% recycled plastic, soon to be increased to 100%.
Weleda’s ‘soft touch’ plastic tubes are made from 50% post consumer waste. Currently some regions in the UK do not offer kerbside collection for these mixed plastics tubes, because recycling facilities vary around the country. So Weleda has teamed up with TerraCycle, so customers can return their empties to TerraCycle (free of charge) rather than putting them out with rubbish. Every 10kg of Weleda packaging recycled with TerraCycle in 2019 will raise nearly £10 for conservation organisation The Global Penguin Society
As Weleda approaches its centenary, the company is just as committed today to making health and beauty products as sustainable as possible, both inside and out.
You can follow Weleda’s progress in the brand’s annual sustainability report.
Plant Apothecary
Plant ApothecaryHolly McWhorter and Bjarke Ballisager, a husband and wife team with backgrounds in architecture, journalism and music, started PLANT Apothecary in 2012, after Holly had spent years trying out skincare products and finding she was having a bad reaction to all of them. She studied natural cosmetic formulation, aromatherapy and herbalism and learned to make her own products, that were simple, natural, unharmful and restorative, and one day Holly and Bjarke realised that they had a potential skincare brand on their hands.
Whether your skin is sensitive, acne-prone, lighter or darker, bumpy or smooth, PLANT Apothecary’s unisex, USDA Organic, vegan, cruelty-free beauty, grooming and bath products will cater for your skin type. The brand’s products are 100% free of petroleum, parabens, phthalates, sulphates, silicones and any other synthetic nasties, and they come in simple, straightforward, distinctive packaging.
PLANT Apothecary follow the principles of classical aromatherapy and herbalism to offer customers some of the best plant-based apothecary products available today. Suitable for all the family.
Dirty Velvet
Dirty VelvetClothing for Gentlemen Rebels
A UK-based design collective, Dirty Velvet make high-quality clothing with designs that offer a refreshingly different perspective to the mainstream. Their aim is to create garments with original graphics, combining strong and thought-provoking imagery that reflects their satirical view of humanity, modern life and the universe.
Dirty Velvet has numerous famous fans, including comedians Russell Howard and Josh Widdicombe, sportsmen Usain Bolt and Ronnie O’Sullivan and physicist Professor Brian Cox.
Dirty Velvet’s long-lasting ethical clothing is made with minimal impact on the environment. All the cotton they use is organic, grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilisers and certified by GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard). The ring-spun yarn process and double-seam stitching used throughout the range make their garments soft, robust and extremely comfortable to wear.
The water-based inks used for printing are not only better for the environment compared to the more commonly used oil-based Plastisol inks, but they also allow for fine image detail and a very soft hand feel to the finished garment. RELEVANT. REBELLIOUS. ETHICAL.
Natural Wisdom
Natural Wisdom An artisanal beauty brand on a mission to become plastic-free, Natural Wisdom was founded in 2007 by Maeve, a homoeopath with a background in herbalism and nutrition, on strong eco-friendly principles. All Natural Wisdom products are made from natural and food-grade ingredients, many of which are raw as well as organic, and are 100% vegan and cruelty-free.
Guided by nature’s wisdom, Maeve and her small team create and manufacture a luxurious premium range of skincare, solid perfumes and haircare, in small freshly made batches in their studio in Hampshire, England.
Using superior-quality ingredients, the team create high-potency skincare products designed to help protect, nourish and repair all skin types, with a special affinity for dry, sensitive and sun-damaged skin. Packaged within biophotonic Miron Violet Glass™, their capsule range offers an antioxidant feast for the skin.
Natural Wisdom’s range of solid perfumes and colognes are designed as aromatherapeutic scents for the senses. Packaged in handcrafted wooden containers made from the root of the cedar tree indigenous to Morocco, their perfumes are ‘a creative celebration of the natural magic and wild purity of nature’.
Maeve’s most recent additions to her collection include a growing range of natural and organic solid shampoo and hair conditioner bars. Made with Ecocert- and COSMOS-approved ingredients, Maeve uses exotic, nutrient-rich botanical actives, herbs and spices, including colloidal oats, turmeric, cinnamon and cocoa and vanilla extracts in her haircare products.
KnowledgeCotton Apparel
KnowledgeCotton Apparel Wearing sustainable innovation
Danish menswear brand KnowledgeCotton Apparel was started in 2008 by Jørgen Mørup, together with his son Mads. But Mørup had been producing textiles, with his father, for years before that, first opening a small textile company in the city of Herning in 1969. From the beginning, the company has followed sustainable principles, with Mørup introducing organic cotton to the business at the end of the 1980s.
KnowledgeCotton Apparel is a clothing line for men made from eco-friendly textiles. The brand is built on almost fifty years of family experience in design, innovation, responsible environmental practices and a passion for quality, standards that remain at the core of the brand’s philosophy today.
Alongside its aim to provide the environmentally aware, fashion-conscious man with sustainable clothing choices, KnowledgeCotton Apparel guarantees the consumer won’t have to compromise when it comes to style, comfort or quality.
Using 100% certified organic cotton and other sustainable materials, it is the brand’s goal to save the environment from 800,000 litres of pesticides, chemicals and fertilisers, as well as to have converted more than 4.5 million plastic bottles into recycled polyester, by 2020. KnowledgeCotton Apparel’s newest aim is to become 100% carbon neutral across its supply and distribution chain by 2025, by working with carbon-neutral factories run on green power.
