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The CBU January Round-up

January's focus was all about ethics and activism. Read our round-up and lessons of the month.

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A Snapshot

In short, lots has happened in the first month of 2021.

We launched our new membership site and welcomed our first 3 Premium Members, 1 Associate and 19 Friends from around the world.

We presented our first Keynote speech on ‘Creating An Aligned Sustainability Message for the Beauty Industry’ for Common Share’s Source for Tomorrow.

We had an additional 13 people sign the Conscious Beauty Pledge.

We hosted our first webinar of 2021, with a stellar expert panel including Alice Wilby, Áine Rose Campbell and Betsy Reed (more on that below).

And finally, we launched our monthly Beauty Chats (and used it as an excuse to have a little launch party!)

January's Theme: Ethics + Activism

January was host to various awareness days, weeks and months – many of which speak to one ethical issue or another. However, most notably for us is Veganuary and Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention month (US). These two topics are both prevalent in beauty, so we thought that shining a light on ethics – and why they matter, would be an excellent way to set the tone for 2021.

Our various coverage on the topic provides helpful ways to factor them into our personal lives and professional practices, in an even more conscientious way.

Ethics

The challenges of certifying organic colour cosmetics

Continuing our celebration of Organic September, Georgia Barnes – Head of Business Development: Beauty & Wellbeing, Fashion & Textiles for the Soil Association and Paige Tracey - Business Development and Marketing Officer join forces to explain why it is harder to fill our make-up kits with certified organic colour cosmetics than it is with skincare.

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Lessons from the webinar

We kicked off our monthly themed conversation with a fantastic panel talk on How To Be A Proactive Beauty Activist. As it turns out we’re pretty tapped into the zeitgeist and very much ‘on-trend’ (without even knowing it)! According to a recent report commissioned by Beautystack, ‘Activism and self-mastery are set to revolutionise beauty culture in 2021.’

The webinar was initially inspired by conversations we had been having CBU member, Crystabel Riley. Essentially, a proactive beauty activist is one that stands up and champions what you believe in – for the greater good.

The key takeaways from the webinar were:

You don’t have to be laying down your life on the picket lines to be a proactive activist.
Activism has many names: Campaigner, Change-maker, Organiser, Advocate and Activist. Use the term you feel most comfortable with, but do so with integrity.
Find and use your purpose to direct your activism. Don’t worry about campaigning for every cause – focus on the ones that matter to you most.
Look for your allies. Change happens bigger, faster, further when we do things together.

You can hear all the other brilliant advice offered by our panellists by watching the recording. Also, watch this Ted Talk, which was recommended by our member, Laura Onea.

Crystabel has very kindly shared with us some of the emails that she has written to brands in the past (and some of their responses), asking them about their policies and practices on various potential ethical issues. It’s important to know that it’s ok to ask these questions, and we have a responsibility to do so. This approach is an effective one if you want to know what a brands stance and practices are on everything from mica to packaging if they are not readily available on their website or social media channels.

Here’s a round-up of helpful resources and things to consider when crafting your campaigning letter/email to brands:

https://www.peta.org/action/activism-guide/letter-writing/

http://www.wluml.org/node/5603

https://ecowarriorprincess.net/2018/01/how-to-write-an-email-letter-to-a-fashion-brand-if-youre-seeking-more-transparency/

And remember, the more voices, the stronger and more resilient the clarion call will be.

Do you have any causes or questions? If so, please reach out to us and your fellow CBU members about campaigns or actions you are working on so we can support each other and create real change, together.