Why the beauty industry can’t be sustainable
Jasmi Bonnén, founder of NOURI, speaks out, we highlight the rise of ”degrowth”, and share a glimpse of the next Beauty Innovation Talks.
IN THIS ISSUE
INSIGHTS: Jasmi Bonnén, founder of NUORI, on why the beauty industry can’t be sustainable
NEWS: Inuacare shares the pros and cons of being the first Greenlandic beauty brand
EVENT: Save the date for our next Beauty Innovation Talks
WORLD NEWS: A ”much-needed” upgrade of the hair dryer
A major contradiction
This week, I attended Swedish trend expert Stefan Nilsson’s annual event, sharing the key trends for 2024 and 2025. Key takeaways? The physical store is back, due to ”digital fatigue”; things will get better, soon (an estimated retail growth of 5–6% this year), and — what got stuck in my mind — we need to start talking about degrowth.
The word can be described as a critique of our hunt for growth with climate change as a consequence. More than 15 years after the first international degrowth conference for ecological sustainability and social equity took place in Paris in 2008, it has just recently entered the mainstream sustainability lexicon.
French economist Timothée Parrique’s thesis The political economy of degrowth from 2019 has reportedly been downloaded tens of thousands of times. According to him, creativity is missing from economic theory, and ”economists stubbornly attempt to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s theories.” Instead of GDP, Parrique sees degrowth as a way to achieve a ”post-growth” society, in which the economy blooms without growth, and in harmony with nature: ”Just as a car engine cannot be bigger than the car itself, the economy cannot grow larger than the ecosystems that support it.”
Other economists have stated that although the transition away from fossil fuels is crucial, there is no automatic connection between growth and increased carbon emissions. (United Kingdom’s emissions are down on the same level as the 1850s. Sweden is at the levels we had in the 1960s and in the US, they’re also going down — and yet, we have had growth).
Later in this email, Jasmi Bonnén, who founded Danish natural skincare brand NUORI almost ten years ago, touches upon the major contradiction here.
— If you’re a consumer product brand saying that your company is ’sustainable, period’, is just wrong, I think. Our reason for existence is to create and sell more products, right?
Also in this issue, Nanna Louise Haagen Olesen, COO of Inuacare, explains that the Greenlandic skincare brand prefers to talk about sustainability in more practical terms.
— We don’t say that we’re a sustainable brand, but talk much more in-depth about the sustainable initiatives that are the DNA of the bran.
Trend expert Stefan Nilsson notes that one major key to solve is how to turn degrowth into a business opportunity. NUORI’s philosophy is rooted in freshly blended skincare. Using no synthetic preservatives or other additives, the shelf life becomes limited but, according to the brand, it also enables them to create purer formulations with higher efficacy. And, not least, it reduces overproduction.
Being responsible for 10% of global CO2 emissions, the fashion industry will soon face strict regulations to limit waste. Now, it’s about time to highlight the oversaturated beauty industry. A report conducted by Avery Dennison in 2022, named The Missing Billions: The Real Cost of Supply Chain Waste claimed that ”more than 10% of beauty products worth an estimated $4.8 billion are wasted in supply chains.”
How many beauty products do we need?
This weekend, we kick off 2024 at the leading beauty press event Daisy Beauty Expo in Stockholm. In Las Vegas, the major beauty players showcase a sustainable reinvention of the hair dryer and other new tech innovations at CES, which are featured in our World View. And three weeks from now, we welcome you to the next edition of Beauty Innovation Talks at CIFF in Copenhagen.
Until next week, enjoy!
Inuacare shares the pros and cons of growing a beauty brand from Greenland to a global audience
Nanna Louise Haagen Olesen, COO: ”We walk out into the Greenlandic mountains and hand-pick all of the herbs using no other tools other than our hands.”
EVENT
Join us for Beauty Innovation Talks: How AI and data can power beauty brands
We’re bringing our beauty insights format back to Copenhagen.
WORLD VIEW
A briefing on innovations in the global beauty industry
NewBeauty: This Is the First Global Beauty Brand to Go 100% Vegan
Fast Company: Your hair dryer is terrible for the planet. L’Oréal is giving it a much-needed upgrade
The Star: At CES 2024, beauty products pamper with AI
INSIGHTS
The beauty industry can’t be sustainable, Jasmi Bonnén states
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
The founder of fresh skincare brand NOURI on carbon-negative packaging, why the regulatory environment needs to be modernised, and how advanced skincare formulas limit the currently available options for refillables.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Beauty Innovation by Scandinavian MIND to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.