An Analysis of Lush Cosmetics' Sustainability Practices and Policies

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Lush Cosmetics' sustainability initiatives. It details the company's commitment to environmental responsibility, covering various aspects such as packaging, raw materials, waste reduction, and ethical sourcing. Lush Cosmetics has implemented several policies, including reducing packaging waste by offering products without packaging, using recycled materials, and promoting reusable packaging. They have also banned animal testing, adopted green policies, and supported various charitable causes. Furthermore, the company utilizes cloud apps to monitor and improve its environmental performance, focusing on energy and water conservation, sustainable transportation, and ethical sourcing of ingredients. The report highlights the company's efforts to reduce deforestation, promote ethical sourcing, and communicate its sustainability efforts to customers. Lush Cosmetics' success in sustainability is evident in its packaging initiatives, raw material choices, waste management, energy conservation, water reduction, and communication strategies. The company strives to report its environmental performance annually and keeps sustainability at the forefront of its operations.

Sustainability Lush cosmetics
Lush Cosmetics
Lush cosmetics is a cosmetics retailer which was founded by Mark Constantine and Liz Weir.
The headquarters of this company are located at Poole, Dorset, UK. The growth of this company is
mainly dependent on partnerships. Basically there are two types of partnerships that takes place in the
business one is general partnership where the partners owns and operate on the business. The other one
is liability partnership where the partners serves as investors only. They have no control over the
company (Lush company, 2017). Lush is structured in a limited partnership (Sempels and Hoffmann ,
2013.). Creams, soaps, shampoos, shower gels, lotions and other cosmetics related to hair, body and
face are produced by Lush. The “Emotional Brilliance” makeup collection is also by the lush in the
July .Under this collection mascara and eyes right was launched by Lush.
Sustainability initiatives by Lush cosmetic
Sustainability : Sustainability can be defined as the ensuring the triple bottom line in the business. A
sustainable business is the one which endures the least adverse impact on the environment, community
and society. In other words it can that the business which is incubates environment friendly methods in
its operations is sustainable business organization. Operations broadly consider the processes of
business and the products and services offered by the company. An enterprise is considered as
sustainable when they are committed to abiding with the environmental principles and mixing them in
their operations (Benn, 2014). Lush cosmetics has taken certain steps to make the business sustainable,
it has made certain policies which cover the packaging, raw material, recycling, energy and water. It
monitors its manufacturing operations to avoid and rectify any waste of electricity, water, gas
consumption, this way overconsumption or unnecessary consumption is avoided by the company. The
monitoring helps it to control waste in real time and also make improvements in the equipment’s to
reduce consumption such as LED's to reduce electricity usage. Company has used renewable
techniques to reduce the packaging in the products. Over 50% of the products offered are given without
packaging to reduce the waste. It was estimated that over 6 million plastic bottles were saved by selling
shampoo bars. The innovative techniques reduce waste in the environment which provides acceptable
sustainability to the company (Giunipero, 2012). The bottles and packaging used by the company are
made of 100% recycled plastic to reduce the waste of plastic. The company has also introduced a
unique offer under which Lush cosmetic stores give free fresh face mask in exchange for 5 empty

bottles which encourages customers to reduce waste and return the bottles for reuse by the company.
Lush has established a Green hub solely for the prime purpose of processing all the waste that is
generated in Lush manufacturing. The company reduced its waste by 75% in one year by recycling the
waste created in the manufacturing and operations. Also the retail stores are controlled to use electricity
which decreases the consumption. The company is completely aware of the adverse effects of its
business on the environment and has been making policies to reduce them to an extent (Smith, 2011).
Also, the company has not been reported as verified as per the environment standards but is trying to
report in future.
No animal testing: Animal testing is referred to as testing of cosmetics on animals to guarantee safety
of the products for public use. The practise has been in controversy in the indusrty of cosmetic
products. Consumers have been against animal testing as the practise harm the animals and there has
been long debate on the use of animal testing to ensure products safety. European Union banned
animal testing for all the cosmetic companies operating in the members countries. Lush cosmetics is
against any testing of its products on animals and abides by the rules of the European Union
(Hedesström, 2011). The company faced an issue regarding the testing of products on animals in 2012.
A video showed testing being done on an animal by Lush. Though the company claims to no animals
for testing purpose.
Green policy: Lush has many made policy to provide and resolve subsequent issues, this regard the
hazardous impact of its operations on the environment. To obtain sustainability and reduce waste a
green initiative was launched by the company under which policies were made to reduce waste in the
environment and also decrease the consumption of the energy by the company. Company also made
important decision to eliminate the consumption of palm oil in the manufacturing of its products and
use other oils which are more environment friendly instead of the palm oil, also the mineral oils were
exchanged by almond oil (Hopwood, 2010). Lush also started to report environment performance in the
year 2011. There were no such reports found on the internet including the report.
Charity support : Lush cosmetics has been active providing charity to the various organizations. The
company has been participative in donations for environment, human rights and animal protection. It
was reported that Lush cosmetics donated a total sum of £1,586,000 as charities in 2011. It also
supported campaigns such as end of reptile trade and other animals of value. It also pay an active
support when Japan was hurt by Earthquake (Weerawardena, 2010). The installation of internal carbon
tax program was initiated by the company under which the company all the international flights of the
employees was charged by tax rate of £50 per tonne CO 2 emitted. The total tax collected was
£109,374.

Packaging: In the sector of cosmetic most of the packaging items contains harmful ingredients
that can be dangerous for the environment such as polyethylene. This have increase the need for the
company to address sustainable packaging for the cosmetic products (Wakefield-Rann, 2017). Various
efforts are been made by Lush to campaign environmental problems with the staff and customers and to
decrease the impact of environment on the design, manufacturing and selling of products.
Cloud -app for sustainability: In order to improve reporting and help the software provider to
collect organize data Cloud Apps have been used by the LushCosmetics.The complete footprint of the
company's environment is captured and disclosed by making use of cloudapps sustainability suite. This
will help to measure the use of water and energy, travel and packaging across all the stores and many
offices and factories in the UK. In order to reduce the usage of energy across factory Lush also works
hard by recycling more than 85% of the waste. To achieve better efficiency lush is retrofitting its shops
and banning domestic flights. The renewable energy systems are also installed by the company. All this
hard work that has been done by the company for sustainable environment need to be monitored which
is why cloud apps software is used by the company. By involving in the partnership with cloud apps,
Lush wants to achieve further carbons savings (Richomme-Huet and Freyman, 2014).
Environmental policy: Lush company have always used creative solutions so as to make a
positive outcome on the planet. For an instance the invention of first solid shampoo bar make use
recycling packaging and the use of single water bottles were banned in the workplace. The environment
policy of the company deals with various issues such as packaging, energy, water and recycling,
transport and communication. In order to sell the products to customers without any packaging the
company motivates the customers to bring their own bags and tins.
About 78% of the products of the company do not require any packaging and half of the
products are sold without any. The recycled product materials are used by the company and motivates
the customer to bring back their empty pots (Posthumus, 2016.). By making use of LED lightening and
other efficient equipment, company strives to reduce the use of energy. There was an annual decrease
of 5% due to usage of efficient production equipment. The company is also recycling the waste that is
produced.
Sustainable transporting: In order to reduce the impact of transporter company have banned
the usage of air travel in UK and also aims to reduce the use if air freight. The company also pay 50
pounds UK steeling per flight as a voluntary carbon tax that can be utilized to fund transport and
climate change groups. In order to inform the customers about variety of different environmental

problems Lush Cosmetics makes use of communication strategy .For an instance training is given to
staff to discuss about the environmental issues with the customers. In order to achieve this shop
windows can be sued to display a variety of different campaign messages. The ingredients that are used
in cosmetic products such as vanilla and palm oil are connected with issues of environment and may
have a sustainability risks (Lush, 2016.).
Reduction in deforestation: Deforestation can be related to the production of these items. So
there is requirement of applying sustainable practices at the production of these items. This can be done
by planting more and more plants in the garden (Voigt, Buliga and Michl, 2017).
Ethical sourcing: The company also pays its importance to ethical sourcing in order to make
sure that products come from the known sources and ensuring that no harm is done to people. The
objective of the pure and natural oils is explain by the company and healthy relation are maintained by
the suppliers of these products to ensure this. The ethical buying policy of the Lush USA explain the
various steps that is taken in order to buy the raw materials.
Sustainability success of Lush Cosmetics
In order to maintain sustainability at company it is the responsibility of all staffs and customers
at the company.
Packaging
At a global level about 6 million plastic bottles have been saved from selling the shampoo bars
alone by the company (Goworek, 2014). The little packaging is used in the shops. In case where
packing cant be avoided,the shops make use of recycled materials. And the company is working to
make the 100\% packaging of recycled products. The company is also looking forward to start using
refills and enhance the usage of reusable transport product across factories and shops. The company
believes in the selling of products without nay packaging.
Raw material
A great care is taken by the company at the time of buying raw materials. The shops make use
of only those products that are develop in a sustainable way and avoid those products that are not. For
an instance, palm oil was modifies by more earth-friendly oils in the soap base. The company is now
working to remove it from all products and also motivating other companies across globe to do so. The
masses of natural ingredients is also be keep putting of the products (Gardetti, 2017).
Waste and materials

About 89% of the lush packaging is totally recycled which involves paper bags, gift wrap,
ribbons, boxes and tags. With 100% post-consumer recycled plastic the pots and bottles are made thus
saving about 65% of carbon dioxide and tonn of plastic. The 100 tonn of carbon dioxide each years is
saved by the company by making carrier bags with 100/% post-consumer recycled paper.With the
recycled paper gifts are lovingly wrapped and are secured by making use of Eco flow.
Energy
The company is trying to reduce the use of energy by asking the staff to switch off the light
when not in use and by gen rating some of its own energy and increasing insulation. The company
make use of LED lights at the shops and other efficient production equipment (Sempels and Hoffmann,
2013.).
Water
The company tries to reduce the use of consumption of water in the products by making some
of the products solid.
Communication
The company will try to report its environmental performance on a yearly basis and enduring
that green issues are alive in the hearts of staff by delivering policy on what it promises. The
encouragement and motivation need to be given to people towards making the environment green and
sustainable (Amatulli, Costabile, and Guido, 2017).
For an instance Lorial product that is developed by the lush company is part of sustainable
packaging cosmetic round table whose motive is to provide advance sustainable packaging.
A green policy is launched by the lush company in UK (Green policy of Lush, 2017). The goals of
this policy is to reduce the use of palm oil in the products and to replace it with more environment
friendly oils and make use of almond oils instead of mineral oils.

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