The importance of being ethical: Lush
Insider visited the Lush factory and the blueberry farm where it sources some of its ingredients, and caught up with Lush's co-founder and Rowena Bird to find out what's next for the business, what the company is doing to continue its sustainability mission of 'leaving the world Lusher than it is', and why ethics are so important in business. Meanwhile, Morgan Brown, Lush product buyer, explains how her job works and why its so vital that Lush visits the places that it sources its ingredients from.
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00:00We're creating a new treatment, rewilding facial and we've got the high lens treatment
00:26in the spas that we have. And we're also opening the hair lab. So we've got two hair labs
00:32at the moment. We've got one in Liverpool, which is our largest shop in the world. And
00:37then we have one in Brighton, which is a standalone hair lab. And we're going to be opening another
00:41couple of hair labs. And this is where you can come and get your hair done. We do full
00:45consultation for your hair. We wash your hair in hard and soft water, depending on how you
00:50want your hair to feel. Hopefully pretty soon by the end of next year, there'll be a couple
00:55more around as well. I think we take that stance because we actually really care. I
01:05think customers expect it of you. If they think about it, I think people would expect
01:11you to be responsible for what you're doing. And we like to be responsible for what we're
01:17doing. And we like to, we're not doing it to be better than anyone else. We're doing
01:21it because we think it's the right thing to do. It's the right thing to take responsibility
01:25for what you're doing and what you're creating and what you're selling and how you behave.
01:35So hi, my name is Morgan. I work for Lush as part of the buying team. And I'm one of
01:40our raw material buyers. Most of my job is working with our amazing suppliers all around
01:45the world. We try and buy direct from growers and producers wherever possible, which means
01:50that we're able to travel all around the world, understanding our supply chain, which
01:53is really, really exciting, but also really important that we uphold the ethics at Lush.
01:58This is probably the second biggest part of what I do day to day. We make sure that all
02:02of our products uphold all of our ethics. So that could be our non-animal testing policy
02:06or our buying policy to make sure that all of our materials align with all of our ethics.
02:14I'm really, really privileged and lucky that Lush really value our understanding of the
02:20supply chain so that we're able to travel directly to where materials are produced or
02:23grown to understand the supply chain. But this does mean I get to go to some really
02:27fun places. So this year I was able to go to Sicily to look at olive oil and citrus
02:33growing. I was able to go to Spain to visit one of our clay mines. But equally, as though
02:40this is fun and it's really exciting to see part of the world as part of my job, it's
02:44essential to making sure that we uphold all of Lush's ethics.
02:51Oh, I am so proud of our Green Hub. We are taking control of our waste. And I think that
02:59is so important. And I think all companies should do that. As a business, you create
03:04a lot of waste. And it's, you know, just finding somebody else to deal with your waste.
03:12It just makes me speechless. It's like, no, you've created the waste, deal with it. And
03:18so that's why we've opened our Green Hub. It takes all our waste from around manufacturing
03:23and from around our retail stores and turns it back into something else. We encourage
03:28our customers to bring in their black pots. We're trying to get across to them, you're
03:33just renting the pot. Bring it back in and we'll give you your deposit back. And that's
03:39what we want. Bring your packaging back to us because we will deal with it. The trouble
03:43is if you put it into recycling, your local recycling at home, the stats tell you that
03:49there's 8% actually gets recycled. Whereas if you bring your packaging back into Lush,
03:54we're going to recycle 100% of that. So, you know, take responsibility businesses for the
04:01waste that you're creating. So we recycle our cardboard, our water, everything.
04:09So we're not stopping giving altogether. In August, we open up for participants to apply
04:18for the spring prize, which is all about regeneration. And that receives a prize of 200,000. So that
04:24will be held next year. We have got the watermelon soap, which is raising money for children
04:31with mental health issues now in Palestine and Gaza. So we're looking after these children.
04:38We're also trying to support them. So we're still going to be, have activism, activist.
04:44We're still going to be activists. We're still going to campaign. We're just not going to
04:48sell the charity pot product itself, but we will be selling other products. And then while
04:53we're not selling that product, we are going to be thinking, right, how do we want the
04:57future to look for our giving? What do we want to concentrate on? What are we going
05:03to fund? What are we going to support? So we're not stopping. We're just taking a little
05:08break from the sales of the charity pot, and then we're coming back bigger and better than ever.