Sustainability of Cassis Kuss
Based on my research from each of all the ingredients in this recipe (which you can read about by clicking on each ingredient in the ingredient list, or by browsing the ingredients page), I have created the following summary table. (🟢= sustainable ingredient; 🟡= unsustainable, but has many positive factors; 🟠= unsustainable, concerning; ⚫= very unsustainable.)
Remember: these are my ratings, other, potentially less honest people may give more favourable ratings to certain ingredients.
|
Ingredient |
Rating |
The Good |
The Bad |
|
Organic Mango Butter |
🟠 |
Upcycled ingredient. It is produced from the kernel (stone), which is otherwise waste from the fruit industry. No extra land needed. |
Processing the hard stone requires energy/machinery. Refining the mango butter requires a lot of energy. Mostly imported (carbon miles). |
|
Organic Coconut Oil |
🟠 |
High yield per acre (better than other oil crops). Tree crop (carbon sequestration). |
Transport distance. Heavy product to ship globally. Farmers often face extreme poverty (requires Fair Trade). |
|
Organic Jojoba Oil |
🟠 |
Great for soil stability; native plant (Peru); pesticide-free. |
Water stress. Grown in desert regions where aquifer depletion is a major crisis. |
|
Organic Local Beeswax |
🟢 |
Lowest Carbon Footprint. Transport emissions are near zero. Supports local pollination ecosystems. |
none |
|
Organic Sunflower Glycerin |
🟡 |
Palm-oil alternative. Sunflowers are hardy, rotation crops that support soil health. Glycerin is a byproduct of oil production (waste reduction). |
Energy-intensive hydrolysis process to separate the glycerin. |
|
Organic Almond Oil |
⚫ |
Trees sequester carbon. |
Water Thirsty. Requires massive irrigation (mostly grown in drought-prone regions). Commercial pollination stresses bee populations. |
|
Organic Blackcurrant essential oil |
🟡 |
Often derived from a byproduct (seeds) of the juice industry. Blackcurrants are a hardy, often low-input crop. |
Essential oil extraction (steam distillation) is very energy-intensive. |
It is important to note that this is a simplification of the many complex and often interrelated issues 🤯 when it comes to assessing the sustainability of a product, and that for most ingredients I can only make generalisations as, despite my best efforts, 🔎I don’t know much about the exact provenance of my ingredients.
The most environmentally damaging ingredient in Essential Lips is likely the almond oil, due to its high water consumption💧.
What about the container?♻️
Cassis Kuss is sold in a little tin: this is less practical than the little plastic lip balm sticks, but I made a conscious choice to avoid plastic.🙅 Aluminium is a great material in many ways because it is 100% recyclable and does not degrade when recycled, meaning it can be recycled over and over again without losing quality. Additionally, the energy costs of using recycled aluminium are very low. However, the extraction and production of new aluminium ⛏️is far from sustainable. Mining has a huge environmental cost, destroying habitats and using a huge amount of energy to convert the ore to metal (much more than producing plastic).🏭
So those little metal jars are only better than plastic if they are reused as long as possible and then properly recycled. As they are small they pose particular problems for recycling, often getting sorted out and sent to landfill🗑️. To ensure the aluminium gets fully recycled you can use the can-in-can method🥫, but please make sure you put them in an aluminium can, not steel like in the video🛑.
What can I do to make it less unsustainable?
As noted above, the almond oil is the most unsustainable ingredient in this recipe. I therefore plan to remove this ingredient or replace it with another vegetable oil.🥥🥑
I also plan to switch to unrefined organic mango butter (instead of refined). 💡This will significantly reduce the environmental impact of this ingredient as much of the energy costs associated with its production come from the refinement process. These changes will affect the texture and smell of the lotion so several tests will need to be run.🔬
Watch this space, or subscribe to my mailing list 💌 to be the first to hear how it all goes!
What can you do to make it less unsustainable?
As with everything, sustainability starts with using only what you need and not wasting. Therefore, please use your lip balm fully before buying a new one. 🙏 Please reuse the tin and when it has reached the end of its life recycle it♻️using the can-in-can method (make sure you put them in an aluminium can, not steel like in the video).
Want to do more?
Together we have done a lot to reduce our environmental impact when it comes to this body butter! 🥳 But if you really want to do more, you could offset the impact of your body butter by donating a few francs to one of these NGOs:
- Waterkeeper Alliance: 🌊 targeting water scarcity and pollution (problematic for almond oil production).
- Rainforest Alliance: 🐸targeting tropical deforestation (problematic for cinnamon essential oil and vanilla essential oil productions)
- WWF: 🐼 targeting nature conservation worldwide.
