This week I spoke to Emma Lewisham the founder of her eponymous skincare brand that is, in my always honest opinion, Australasia’s leading beauty brand. Period.

Today, Emma Lewisham proudly announced it’s the world’s first carbon positive beauty brand with a 100% circular-designed business model (another world-first, might I add). It’s also sharing its entire sustainable IP for its world achievements industry-wide to drive change in an industry that so desperately needs it.

As if that wasn’t enough, these world-first achievements have garnered Emma Lewisham a personal endorsement from renowned environmentalist, activist and preeminent human being, Dr Jane Goodall.

We caught up with Emma ahead of her announcement so we could give our Saucettes the scoop first.

Why did you decide to share your intellectual property? Isn't that giving away your competitive advantage?

The decision to share our Beauty Blueprint is not one I made lightly. I am an entrepreneur at heart, but I am also a mother, daughter and friend – and this decision was bigger than me. Our Beauty Blueprint is undoubtedly one of our brand’s competitive advantages, but, to be honest, none of it matters unless other brands join us on our circular and carbon positive movement. We won’t be able to make a dent in the beauty industry’s waste problem alone, but if we collaborate instead of compete, we have the ability to create real change.

We have less than 10 years left to prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis, we no longer have the luxury of time. By sharing our Beauty Blueprint we hope that other brands can capitalise on our innovation and investment to accelerate their transition to a circular and carbon positive model. The problems we face are so much greater than the success of one business or brand, and if we are going to solve them, collaboration is key. We must tear down the barriers of competition once and for all – unifying around a greater vision where future generations may thrive. This has to be the future of beauty.

Why do you think no other beauty brand has moved to a 100% circular-designed model before?

I think there are likely a few reasons. Firstly, it does require a real mindset shift. We are passionate about having a business that is waste free and carbon free, so our circular business model has been the result of problem solving our way to this. It is also not just a result of the tenacity and commitment of our internal team, but the shared values of our suppliers and partners too. Secondly, it does require investment. It is expensive, so for small brands this is definitely a barrier - especially when it comes to developing reusable packaging as most existing refillable packaging designs are patented by large multinational corporations. In addition to the expense, for large, very established businesses it also requires a huge shift, in some ways a complete overhaul of how their business operates. I know there are businesses who have goals to shift to circularly designed products, however, it will take time.

How did you acquire Dr Jane Goodall's endorsement?

I personally reached out to Jane, as I have always looked up to her and simply hoped that she would read about our work. To be honest - I wasn’t actually expecting a reply! So, having her endorsement for our circular and carbon positive path has been one of my proudest moments. I hope that it helps other businesses and consumers understand how paramount these foundational changes we are making are.

Is being carbon positive and carbon negative the same thing?

Carbon positive, carbon negative and climate positive all mean the same thing. Different certification agencies simply choose to use different terminology, however, they all mean that a business is certified to have gone beyond just neutralising carbon emissions to have an additional ‘positive’ contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases from our atmosphere.

What's the difference between being carbon positive at a business level and carbon positive at a product level? Is one harder than the other to achieve?

There are two types of carbon certifications - at a product level and at an organisational or business level. We are certified (carbon positive) at a product level. While many businesses have measured their emissions at a business level, very few have dedicated the time and invested in the resources to measure their emissions at a product level.

Certifying to a product level is far more detailed than certifying to an organisational level. It requires measuring the emissions from every ingredient we use in each product and calculates the greenhouse gas emissions caused through the entire life cycle of a product. Our certification process took over 12 months of work in measuring our emissions and implementing our carbon reduction strategy.

In comparison, measuring to an organisation level is less detailed and measures the greenhouse gases that are emitted from all the activities and operations across an organisation.

So, obviously, it's a lot more than just investing in carbon credits?

Yes - to become certified Carbon Positive, we worked with Toitū Envirocare, who is a world-leading independent environmental certification agency. Over the course of 12 months, we measured the carbon emissions emitted at each stage of our products’ lifecycle including growing, harvesting, transportation, product packaging and end-of-life. This allowed us to clearly see where we could reduce carbon emissions and enabled us to implement an extensive carbon reduction strategy as a first point of call. After reducing each product's carbon footprint as much as possible, we then offset our remaining carbon emissions by 125%, to become certified Carbon Positive under Toitū’s Climate Positive programme.

This reduction strategy is a really important part of our certification as we don’t believe that jumping straight to offsetting is the answer. Once carbon is measured it can be simple to say, ‘okay, now we are just going to pay to offset this’, but we are committed to firstly reducing our emissions as much as possible prior to offsetting. Our goal is by 2023 to halve our products’ carbon footprints and cut them to virtually zero by 2035. We are committed to being in a position where we eliminate the need to offset altogether.

Where is Emma Lewisham investing its carbon offset credits?

We have chosen to allocate 75% of our carbon offset credits to regenerating New Zealand’s Puhoi Forest Reserves and 25% to a suite of high-quality international projects. As specific project volume availability varies over time, Toitu supports the organisations within this international portfolio that need it most, however where possible, our preference is to invest in supporting Gyapa’s cook stoves technology in Ghana and a wind power project in India.

Each organisation is aligned with the United Nation Sustainable Development goals, with our chosen projects addressing ‘affordable and clean energy’, ‘decent work and economic growth’, ‘climate action’, ‘no poverty’, ‘good health and wellbeing’, and ‘life on land’.

Why did you decide on those organisations?

Our Emma Lewisham team members are the backbone of our circular and carbon journey and we wanted everyone to have a say in where they felt our carbon credits should be invested. We had a team vote and chose the organisations we did based on where we source our ingredients and make our products.

We chose to invest in regenerating New Zealand’s Puhoi Forest Reserves as we are made in Aotearoa and want to ensure we are helping to regenerate the land that sustains us. Regenerating these forests helps with erosion control, biodiversity and conservation - ensuring that our land may continue to nourish us for generations to come.

We chose to invest in Gyapa's cook stove technology in Ghana as nearly 3 billion people in the developing world cook food and heat their homes with traditional cookstoves or open fires. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 estimates that 4 million premature deaths occur every year due to smoke exposure from these methods, with women and children affected the most. The Gyapa stove improves health by reducing exposure to toxic fumes and smoke, reduced household energy costs, improves the local economy by supporting businesses and providing employment as well as protecting Ghana’s dwindling forests.

Finally, we chose to invest in wind power projects in India as they generate clean electricity, helping eliminate the use of fossil fuels while creating local community employment and lower cost electricity.

What has been the biggest challenge in becoming carbon positive?

The biggest challenge in becoming carbon positive was understanding every aspect of our supply chain, to gain complete transparency. This means knowing where each of our 120 ingredients are grown, harvested, transported, stored, packaged, and so on. And this may seem like reasonable information to have on hand but it is actually incredibly rare that a beauty brand would have this information. The beauty industry has typically operated with a veil of secrecy for a very long time, so it was incredibly time consuming and difficult to gain complete transparency within our supply chain.

What does the future of beauty look like to you?

We hope to see an industry wide transition to circular, carbon positive and collaborative models of business, as this is the only viable solution to the beauty industry meeting global climate targets. We may be the first to have implemented a circular and carbon positive model, but we don’t want to be the last. Collaboration and the sharing of knowledge must play a primary role if we are to meet these targets. We no longer have time to operate in isolation, we must work together if we are to create a truly beautiful beauty industry.

Images - Supplied by Emma Lewisham
Words — Interview by Liam Sharma

Emma Lewisham is the future of Beauty