Good On You extends sustainability analysis to beauty brands

The sustainability ratings company Good On You has expanded its range and is now also including brands in the beauty category. This means that brands offering beauty products will be assessed on the basis of the most important environmental, social and animal welfare aspects throughout their entire value chain.

The company is thus building on its many years of experience as a comprehensive brand assessment system for sustainability in the fashion sector. The new methodology for beauty brands was developed by Good On You's in-house sustainability experts. They spent a year consulting with advocacy organisations, industry bodies and the sustainability teams of several leading brands to ensure that the new methodology reflects industry consensus on best practices.

As with the fashion category, each cosmetics brand will be rated comprehensively based on hundreds of publicly available data points, including brands' disclosed policies and initiatives, quality certification schemes and independent reporting. This is intended to incentivise brands to become more transparent, as the beauty industry is still lagging behind.

“From the start, Good On You’s big ambition has been to use people power to create a more sustainable future—in fashion and beyond. And for nearly a decade, we have supported millions of consumers looking for trustworthy sustainability information. As we launch into beauty and expand our tools to help the industry do better, we see there is a clear opportunity for greater transparency across almost every major issue we have rated brands on,” comments Good On You co-founder Sandra Capponi in a press release.

Majority of beauty brands ‘not good enough’ yet

This is also what the key findings show, following the evaluation of the first 239 cosmetics brands: for example, there is a lack of transparency when it comes to ingredients: While 90 percent of the brands surveyed use fragrance ingredients, almost three quarters (72 percent) do not specify exactly which ingredients they use. „This raises concerns about potential health and environmental impacts,” according to Good on You.

As in the fashion industry, living wages are a neglected area: 84 percent of brands do not take publicly disclosed action to ensure the payment of living wages throughout their supply chains. According to Good on You, this “highlights a significant human rights issue in the industry”.

Particularly worrying are also vague statements regarding animal testing and animal welfare: “Despite ‘cruelty-free’ being a popular buzzword, 78 percent of brands have no certification to show that they are not testing on animals,” Good on You found.

Last but not least, there are also shortcomings when it comes to climate reporting: the majority (80 percent) of major cosmetics brands “do not disclose their progress in meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets, mirroring a similar lack of transparency in the fashion industry”, according to Good on You.

Refillable packaging also appears to be an empty promise: Good on You found that while 15 percent of brands offer refillable products for more than a third of their range, only 2 percent follow this up and report on repeat purchases. According to the company, this raises questions about the real-world impact of these initiatives.

The first 239 brand ratings are available from today for consumers via the Good On You directory and the Beauty Sustainability Scorecard on goodonyou.eco, and for retailers via the upgraded enterprise dashboard and the Good On You API.