INTERIORS & LIVING
CHARABANC
Charabanc is a luxury car fragrance company that offers a range of handcrafted car diffusers and fragrances. Inspired by the golden age of travel, their products are engineered for and aesthetically inspired by the motorcar, with fragrances that evoke iconic drives around the world.
SUSTAINABILITY PURPOSE
Coming up with an entirely unique product idea for an entirely new market sector demands a sustainably-oriented approach as a prerequisite. From its very inception, the founding partners of Charabanc were determined that their product idea would not add to landfill and would inspire other brands that followed to do the same. Charabanc diffusers have been built to last forever, to wear beautifully over time and the brand operates on a refill model utilising fragrance ceramics, thus eschewing the use of plastic EVA beads so often used as the carrier of scent. Charabanc packaging is recycled and recyclable and avoids use of unnecessary plastic wrapping. Furthermore, as part of Charabanc’s journey to accreditation, the company has developed a code of conduct for all of its suppliers ensuring best practice with regards waste, carbon footprint and ethical working practices. Charabanc’s carbon footprint is one of the lowest in the entire fragrance sector, due to the small, independent nature of the business, its policies around travel, energy and waste and its commitment to artisanal techniques and handcraftsmanship.
BUTTERFLY MARK TESTIMONIAL
We are very proud to have been certified with Positive Luxury’s Butterfly Accreditation and are committed to continuing to improve our ways of working to reduce waste and environmental impact and to set the highest standard for other brands in the luxury car fragrance sector.
CARRIE HINDMARSH
FOUNDING PARTNER
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MATERIALS & CIRCULARITY
ENVIRONMENT
Charabanc continuously ensures all materials used in product manufacturing meet the highest sustainability standards. For example, all leather used in product manufacturing is Leather Working Group certified and vegetable tanned as an alternative to chrome tanning which poses serious risks to communities, surrounding waterways, and the ecosystem at large. All scrap pieces of metal from the production process at their manufacturer’s facilities are collected and recycled. Additionally, leather offcuts are also collected and now used to create other Charabanc accessories such as keyrings. The inner ceramic disks of the diffusers can be removed once the scent has worn out and the disks themselves are biodegradable. That leaves the casing that can be filled with a replacement disk and creates a circular model.
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PACKAGING
ENVIRONMENT & GOVERNANCE
All of Charabanc’s packaging material is FSC certified, and paper material is 100% recycled; additionally, all packaging materials are recyclable and biodegradable. The paper is pulp bleached using the EFC (Elementary Chlorine Free) process that holds the Blue Angel ecolabel certification. Charabanc has set a target to reduce its use of secondary packaging by 50% in 2024. Alongside this, the company is working to eliminate its use of plastic in secondary packaging, reduce leaflet sizes, eliminate the use of leaflets entirely for return product refill customers and eliminate all secondary packaging for keyrings and future products.
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RESPONSIBLE SOURCING
GOVERNANCE
Charabanc has visibility over all their direct suppliers and through the certification process, the brand has implemented a code of conduct ensuring social and environmental guidelines are respected and followed in their supply chain. The code focuses particularly on ethics, labour conditions and human rights, as well as use of natural resources, biodiversity protection and animal welfare. More than 50% of Charabanc’s direct suppliers are now signatories of the code. From a material sourcing side, the materials used in their product manufacturing are sourced from within Europe from suppliers and factories abiding by strict EU ESG regulatory guidelines.
WHERE NEXT?
Charabanc as a brand acknowledge that despite their best efforts, there is still room for improvement. In the short term, packaging is an area of focus for them and it is committing to a non-boxed approach for their next product launch in 2024.