Beauty educator funds the planting of 100k trees

20 Jan 2022 --- Last year Formula Botanica, the award-winning online natural cosmetic formulation school, met its record annual donation to charity with a gift of £30,000 shared between non-profit organizations Plantlife and TreeSisters. Plantlife is a British wild plant conservation charity working nationally and internationally to save threatened wild flowers, plants and fungi. TreeSisters, a UK registered social change and reforestation charity, works to place tropical forest restoration into everyone’s hands.

The formulation school has donated approximately £100,000 to charity to date, consistently increasing its contributions year-on-year to reflect its growth. With a student and graduate community of over 14,000 organic skin care entrepreneurs across 179 countries, Formula Botanica’s students operate in a sector that values sustainable natural ingredients. As a result, the company has consciously chosen to support Plantlife and TreeSisters. Speaking to BPC Insights, Formula Botanica’s CEO Lorraine Dallmier details what beauty and personal care consumers are looking for in terms of sustainability from their chosen products, and how this has shaped the brand's 100,000-tree planting pledge. 

Click to EnlargeLorraine Dallmier wants to tackle deforestation and over-consumption. Source: Formula BotanicaAsked what consumers are demanding in terms of sustainability, Dallmier replies: “Not nearly enough! At the moment, consumers are not making sufficient demands regarding sustainability when it comes to their favorite beauty and personal care products.”

“All the polls and surveys seem to suggest that consumers want to do the right thing, but they don’t really know if a product is eco-friendly and aren’t really sure if they’re buying from the right brands. Shoppers then end up hoping for the best and latching on to one or two issues such as packaging or biodegradability, which are part of a much bigger picture but not necessarily the solution they’re hoping for.”

“Ultimately, I believe that the mainstream industry is finally starting to make progress when it comes to getting a handle on its significant environmental impacts, but it still isn’t tackling the root of the problem: the fact that we all just consume too much stuff. The beauty industry must start to embrace multi-purpose, multi-functional and longer-lasting cosmetics that can be used in a circular fashion while encouraging their customers to only buy what they need.”

While over-consumption may take a while to fully address, Dallmier describes what influenced the decision to plant 100,000 trees: “I have been an environmental scientist for 20 years and had a decade-long career in environmental management before becoming CEO and owner of Formula Botanica in 2014. For that reason, it has always been important to me to give back to organizations that are doing important work to sequester carbon, protect biodiversity and support sustainable livelihoods around the world.”

“In 2019, we started growing the Formula Botanica forest with TreeSisters and are delighted to have now been able to fund the planting of 100,000-plus trees in tropical restoration projects around the world. Planting billions of trees across the world is one of the biggest and cheapest ways of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to tackle the climate crisis and I am very proud that we can play a part by supporting this vital work.”

“We have also been a corporate patron of Plantlife International since 2014, which gives wild plants a voice across the world. Our donation in 2021 has gone to restoring UK juniper tree habitats threatened by overgrazing and fungal infections resulting from a changing climate. Both of these charities are a conscious choice for us as a leading voice in the green beauty space - and with our students and graduates operating in a sector reliant on sustainable, natural ingredients.”

Tackling sustainability in BPC

The school aims to bring sustainability issues center stage at every opportunity, both in its curriculum and across its public media platforms. Highlighting the lack of sustainability in the beauty world, Dallmeier emphasizes: “For far too long, we’ve seen the mainstream beauty industry fail to tackle some fundamentally unsustainable practices; chief among which is an economic model built on promoting the overconsumption of beauty products to fuel the industry’s growth and profits. This has to change.”

Click to EnlargeStating that, irrespective of the progress made following global gatherings such as the UN Climate Change Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, the “real action is going to be on the ground”, Plantlife CEO Ian Dunn adds: “Formula Botanica’s multiplier effect can be staggering. With over 14,000 students and graduates in 179 countries - each exercising a voice about a sustainable future, a greener one, a botanical one - the Formula Botanica community is truly impactful.”

TreeSisters, who have partnered with Formula Botanica since 2019, has a goal of planting 20 million trees. The organization’s Founder Claire Dubois says: “With this latest donation of just over £15.5K, Formula Botanica has reached its own milestone of funding 100,000 trees to be planted in the tropics and is well on its way to reaching its goal of seeing its Formula Botanica Forest reach 250K trees by 2025. We wish every growing company were as generous and climate-change focused.” 

Ken Hoellmann, Partner Manager at Formula Botanica, concludes: “Together, Plantlife, TreeSisters and Formula Botanica put out a strong educational message to our students and graduates about the need to focus clearly on sustainability. We are not only inspiring our students but also seeing them deliver indie beauty products to market that are making a clear change to the traditional, unsustainable beauty industry model.” 

By Natasha Spencer-Jolliffe, BPC Insights Senior Journalist