SEEN Again recycling scheme for brands and influencers
19 Aug 2021 --- The beauty agency SEEN group has released its new recycling scheme, SEEN Again, for other businesses including media professionals and influencers. SEEN’s initiative is designed to give these businesses the ability to easily and responsibly recycle their beauty packaging, which includes skin care, cosmetics and fragrance products.
Click to EnlargeSource: SEEN Group.Through the scheme, every time SEEN Group sends samples or gifted products to media professionals and influencers through its network of media collaborators, they will receive 'X Handle' recycling bags for them to fill and return. Businesses wanting to let the initiative take care of their beauty recycling can visit SEEN’s website to generate a return label online.
“There are no other arrangements to make, and no fees are involved,” says Jane Walsh, CEO of SEEN Group. “We look forward to continuing our mission to do whatever we can to elevate perceptions of beauty through the brands we work with and the services we provide.”
Teaming up with returns management provider, ReBound Returns, and recycling company, Handle Recycling, the trio can seamlessly complete the recycling process. Marking its first partnership with a beauty agency, Handle Recycling has existing relationships with salons, barber chains, digital retailers and beauty brands.
Together, the three companies will collect and process packaging from any beauty brand. Once packaging is gathered, it is then arranged into recycling streams or if this is not possible, it is assigned for incineration to produce energy from waste. Recyclable content is then used to make product packaging for other beauty items, such as hairbrushes, combs and mirrors.
Overconsumption overload
SEEN Group houses a collective of beauty experts that provide strategic support, creativity and communications. The SEEN Group’s audience, and the people it serves and collaborates with on a daily basis, include journalists, influencers, industry professionals, makeup artists, hair stylists, nail technicians and estheticians.
“One of our aims when launching SEEN Again was to contribute to the dialogue around sustainability in the beauty industry with our extended network, to help drive industry-wide change at a business level,” says Walsh. “This was about recognizing our industry’s role in relation to overconsumption and introducing responsible, regenerative business models to support this.”
Click to EnlargeJane Walsh hopes SEEN’s initiatives inspire others. Source: SEEN Group.While the agency is not in a position to offer SEEN Again to consumers outside of its direct audience of the media and influencers, it notes that there are businesses already facilitating responsible returns for consumers for a small cost.
“SEEN Again was born out of thinking differently about our audience and our supply chain,” says Walsh. The agency hopes that its launch encourages other businesses, both B2B and B2C. Talking about the hopes for the scheme’s future, Walsh explains: “By nature of thinking with circular design at the heart, it encourages innovation across the full ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) framework which, with collective ambition, will make impactful change.”
Since 2019, SEEN Group has joined forces with the British Beauty Council, which works with the beauty industry, government and other stakeholders to help make the UK beauty industry a priority at government level. As SEEN Group notes on its website, this aim is “something that we’re proud to say has now been achieved, with the UK government now recognizing the contribution of the beauty industry to the UK economy.”
Reaching this milestone signals hope that the government’s recognition of the beauty industry will enable the Council to achieve improved support for education, innovation and inclusivity within the personal care space, along with a conscious focus on sustainability commitments.
Looking ahead, Walsh highlights: “We very much hope it inspires other agencies and businesses across multiple industries to support their collaborators in the same way. SEEN Again was a solution to a business challenge among our industry professionals and a commitment to the SEEN Group values, of which sustainability is one.”
As SEEN Group strives to progress towards industry-wide change, the agency stands by commitments around inclusivity, diversity and representation. “As a business, we hold ourselves accountable to be part of the change, and also challenge our network to do the same, not only through inclusive business practises but also by making space to talk about how we are doing as a team, and how we can learn and improve every day,” SEEN Group states on its website. The brand has an inclusivity reading list on Instagram which it updates with links to books and articles.
By Natasha Spencer-Jolliffe, BPC Insights Senior Journalist
