Sustainability issues at the forefront

COSSMA: What are the major challenges for achieving sustainability in the field of cosmetic ingredients/packaging?

Jeff Huh: For cosmetics, emotional performance, that is, odour, skin feel and appearance, is as important as functional performance. Depending on the specific formulation, it may be challenging to develop a more sustainable solution that has both emotional and functional performance. Another challenge would be the speed of change in consumer perception, which is sometimes faster than scientific progress. This allows less and less time to develop the best solution. To give you an example: palm oil is increasingly used in consumer goods, from cosmetics to personal care products to foods. The increasing demand for palm oil results in irreplaceable rain forests and peatlands being converted for new plantations, thereby contributing significantly to deforestation, loss of biodiversity and climate change. Oil palm is the most efficient oil crop. The yield of palm oil is in average 4 tons per hectare. A shift from palm oil to another vegetable oil would result in increased land use. Furthermore, when it comes to the use of Palm Kernel Oil (PKO) in the Home and Personal Care industry, only PKO and Coconut Oil (CNO) deliver the necessary C12-C14 C-chain, or lauric oils. From a technical point of view, these two oils are interchangeable with each other. However, the CNO plantations grow in the same geographic area, and provide only 0.4 tons of oil per hectare. We are acutely aware of these concerns. Therefore, we have committed ourselves to foster sustainable palm by procuring all oils only from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certified sources by 2020 and expanding our palm oil sustainability commitments to significant intermediates based on palm oil and palm kernel by 2025. Likewise, addressing the consumer’s concerns with fact-based practical solutions, BASF endeavours to introduce more sustainable alternatives through innovation.

What opportunities are there in view of your recent technological progress?

Despite the challenges mentioned, technological advancement does offer new opportunities. For instance, enzyme-based bioprocess enables production to be more sustainable and, sometimes, economical. Improvement in emotional performance evaluation will allow more objective, economical, and faster sensory assessment, which will lead to more efficient development. Moreover, fast-developing IT is allowing consumers to access broader and deeper cosmetic product and ingredient information. Increased consumer awareness on sustainability issues and relevant product information will continue the market-based momentum.

What do you think of upcycling and is upcycling an option in your company?

At BASF, our goal is to minimise waste by utilising every part of the natural resources we use. One example is our Rambutan Program, in which pericarps, seeds, and leaves are effectively transformed into three different cosmetic ingredients delivering hydration, hair anti-pollution, and anti-aging. From the packaging material standpoint, BASF’s ChemCycling project offers an upcycling solution for the consumer goods plastic packaging industry. Plastic waste is transformed into a raw material using thermochemical processes. □This raw material based on recycled plastic waste can be fed into the Verbund to create new chemical products with excellent product performance. The Verbund system creates efficient value chains from basic chemicals right through to high-value-added products. To produce that variety of solutions the by-products of one plant are used as raw materials of another. In this system, chemical processes consume less energy, create less waste and therefore conserve resources. BASF currently operates six Verbund sites worldwide: two in Europe, two in North America and two in Asia. 

How do you define greenwashing in your field of activity? What are some major examples in this field?

Greenwashing is unsubstantiated or misleading claims about the environmental benefits of products, services, or practices. In personal care, we have witnessed claims emphasizing certain positive environmental aspects while ignoring or hiding others. For instance, the ingredients could be 100% from renewable resources, but the packaging may be oversized with low performance. On the contrary, a 100% active solid product with recycled paper packaging may not be necessarily more sustainable if its biodegradability is poorer. Holistic evaluation of environmental impact as well as adequate communication with value chain partners and consumers is essential to avoid greenwashing. Sustainable development has been defined as the balance of economic success, ecological protection and social responsibility. To effectively manage sustainability, a company must be able to measure or otherwise quantify sustainability in each of these pillars. Most measurement and valuation methods that exist are focused exclusively on ecological aspects. BASF uses methods which reflect what sustainability is all about: balancing environment, society and economics. By providing essential data as well as products with quantifiable sustainability performance, we help our customers develop more sustainable consumer products.

In what area do you think that sustainability in beauty products cannot be achieved and why?

I don’t think there is any area in beauty products where sustainability cannot be improved. Sustainability and beauty will continue to be important topics. New technologies may replace some beauty products before we achieve perfect sustainability. The combination of consumer awareness, regulatory scrutiny and new technologies will propel the beauty industry to continue to innovate for sustainability in beauty.