Responsible sourcing is becoming a defining measure of credibility across luxury, and beauty is no exception. The sector shares many of its sourcing challenges with premium drinks, particularly around packaging and raw material traceability. For luxury beauty businesses, understanding how a jar or bottle is made, or where an ingredient originates, requires visibility across several stages of the supply chain.
Positive Luxury’s guide, Responsible Sourcing in Luxury, guide explores how brands can identify, assess and work with responsible suppliers. For beauty, this means assessing packaging across its lifecycle and tracing raw materials back to source.
WHERE THE RISK IS CONCENTRATED
Beauty brands are grappling with real complexity. A core challenge for beauty brands is understanding the environmental impact of packaging. Measuring the impact a jar, bottle or box is rarely straightforward once material choices, manufacturing, transport and end-of-life handling are considered. Lifecycle assessments can help brands understand these trade-offs and identify where changes will make a meaningful difference.
Packaging requirements add further complexity. Extended producer responsibility schemes (EPR), plastic taxes and labelling rules create obligations that vary across markets, requiring brands to consider compliance alongside design and sourcing decisions.
Raw material traceability is another priority. Supply chains can span numerous countries and intermediaries, making it difficult to see beyond immediate suppliers. This can leave human rights risks further upstream unexamined. For natural or bio-based ingredients, climate and biodiversity risks also require attention, as how ingredients are grown or harvested is tied to the natural systems they depend on.
WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE
There are four key approaches to mitigation that brands can take:
- Implement lifecycle assessments (LCAs) to quantify embodied carbon in packaging and identify opportunities to reduce it
- Design packaging for recyclability from the outset, anticipating regulatory changes rather than reacting once they arrive
- Strengthen transparency with suppliers, going beyond Tier 1 to understand where materials originate
- Enhance supplier due diligence and invest in traceability systems, exploring regenerative sourcing practices where natural ingredients are involved
INSPIRATIONAL CASE STUDIES
Miller Harris has worked with packaging specialist Windles Group to inform material choices and packaging design through lifecycle analysis. This brings environmental assessment into the design process, helping identify opportunities to reduce impact before packaging is produced.
Iles Formula has moved to recyclable packaging that is free from microplastics, making packaging specifications part of its approach to responsible sourcing.
Skincycles places ESG standards at the centre of supplier selection, asking prospective partners for documented evidence of their commitments to ISO standards.
Together, these examples show how evidence can support sourcing decisions, from lifecycle analysis to documented supplier standards.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR PREMIUM DRINKS BRANDS
- Start with a packaging format that matters – commission an LCA to assess a high-volume format or one with significant material use to identify opportunities for improvement
- Trace materials back to source – ask Tier 1 suppliers where packaging materials and ingredients originate, then prioritise gaps with the greatest environmental or human rights risks
- Build recyclability into the design brief – from the very beginning, consider the whole pack, including closures, labels and finishes, and how it will be collected and processed after use
- Keep track of packaging requirements – monitor EPR, plastic tax and labelling obligations in your key markets, allowing time to incorporate changes into sourcing and design
- Choose suppliers who can provide proof – ask for documented evidence, check the scope of supplier certifications and independent assessments, and how they apply to the materials or processes you are buying
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