It’s been a year since we announced our Clean to Planet initiative and our Pledge to go Zero Waste by 2021. So we’re celebrating with a roundup of our progress on what’s been an exciting, albeit challenging year in tackling plastic pollution, and raising the game in what it means to be a truly Clean skincare brand - inside and out.

Clean partnership.

In 2018 our partners Surfers Against Sewage organised 1,611 beach cleanups, welcomed 68,200 volunteers and recorded 27,696 plastic bottles (not including other debris) intercepted and recycled. Impressive, right? As part of our #GivingTuesday campaign we gave them £5 from every order to help keep their efforts going and we’ll be working ever closer with them in 2019 and beyond, for cleaner beaches, cleaner oceans and helping spread the clean gospel. Plus, we’ll be organising our own dedicated Black Friday cleanup, giving back 4 days, 18 hours of our time, as promised, for all of our orders taken during Black Friday week.

Perfecting our packaging.

It’s no secret - our bottles are made from plastic. But not all plastic is created equal. By using as much recycled plastic as we can in our bottles we’re keeping it out of the environment and with your help, keeping it in the recycling loop. We’re always giving our packaging clean upgrades, like biodegradable films on our gift boxes, recycled zips on our gift bags and we’ll be continuing to repack our skincare this year to make it fully recyclable. It’s a journey - as each formula needs researched to make sure it'll still be protected in its new packaging, but we’re getting there.
 

Ocean plastic, reinvented.

And this brings us to our innovative Ocean Plastic bottle. We worked with Terracycle to turn our award-winning Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Body Wash into a Clean to Planet pioneer of a product. It’s now available in a bottle made from 20% reclaimed ocean plastic waste, and the rest is 80% recycled plastic bottles. We’ve even made a pump that’s metal-free and easier to recycle. This year we’re expanding the innovation further into the range with our Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium Body Lotion, so watch this ever-more-sustainable space to get yours.

Clean to Planet Hero: Lizzie Carr.

We teamed with adventurer and environmental activist Lizzie Carr as our first Clean to Planet Hero, supporting her to become the first person to successfully paddleboard the navigable length of Hudson River in New York. With community help, Lizzie geotagged over 2,000 samples of plastic waste collected and logged into Planet Patrol, while we educated guests on the environmental effects of plastic pollution and the importance of recycling. As part of the journey, Lizzie is creating a short documentary film 'The Hudson Project' to be released in 2019, spreading further awareness that people can create positive change in the battle against plastic pollution by taking action. And we’ve got more Clean to Planet Heroes coming in 2019, too.

A (recycled) material world.

Our Clean to Planet ethos goes beyond our packaging and formulas, too. In 2018 we took centre stage at Stylist Live, with a sustainable stand made from upcycled materials like compressed wood chips and repurposed scaffolding. We collected over 1,000 customer empties for recycling (traded in for samples) and we even won Champion For Sustainability at the Stylist LIVE Retail Awards. We’re going to be at even more events this year, so we’ll keep you posted on where you can come see us and say hello.