Retailers and distributors have a key role to play in helping beauty close the loop – and move towards real circularity. As the intermediary between increasingly eco-minded brands and consumers, retailers are uniquely placed to promote planet positive beauty, highlight and engage in eco initiatives, and lead the way on sustainability.

To help you transition from ambition to action, we’ve curated a checklist.

Reuse and Refill

The shift towards reusable and refillable packaging represents a crucial step in reducing single-use waste and moving towards a more circular economy. Below is a selection of refill and recycling resources that you can use to help reduce your impact on the planet.

A Journey to Reuse: This Sustainable Beauty Coalition playbook helps brands and retailers begin the path towards refillables, meeting professionals where they are by offering guidance, case studies and interactive workshop templates to identify business-specific pressure points and build a robust strategic case for change.

MYGroup – Beauty and Cosmetics waste: A useful guide that outlines  the difficulties with recycling beauty products, the scale of the challenge and MYGroup’s innovative solutions.

CTPA Refillables guide: This guide goes through the common challenges brands encounter in offering refillable options and how best to tackle these.

Mainstreaming reuse and refill: WRAP’s practical guide identifies opportunities for businesses transitioning to reusable and refillable packaging.

Making reuse a reality: This University of Portsmouth report provides a comprehensive analysis of reuse strategies.

Introduce your own ‘Take-Back’ Scheme

Help your clients close the loop by encouraging them to return their empties to you. This sends a positive message that your business is climate conscious and encourages customer loyalty as well as repeat business and footfall. To make this easy, we have partnered with MYGroup to offer a dedicated British Beauty Council recycling box and created a ‘takeback’ recycling map for you to list your business on and help direct future clients your way!

Join the movement

Collective action is where the real power lies. At the Council, we’re all about sharing challenges in order to overcome them; encouraging industry to work together and create industry-wide movements. The Sustainable Beauty Coalition was formed to accelerate environmental and social change within the beauty industry.Our biggest sustainability campaign is the Great British Beauty Clean Up (link to new Great British Beauty Clean Up explainer). It runs every March and helps brands, retailers, salons and beauty lovers build towards a more circular future. Mobilising industry and consumers, the initiative focuses on Zero-Landfill Recycling, Reuse and Refill, and Product Rescue.

To stay up to date on key issues and be plugged into our campaigns, sign up to the Sustainability newsletter by becoming a member or patron.

Shared insights: cultivating a better future case study

“L’Occitane en Provence was born in 1976 from a simple gesture, the distillation of rosemary, and a deep respect for the natural world. Fifty years later, that has evolved into a global mission to Craft Life Ties – nurture deeper connections between people and nature through responsible craftsmanship.

And it’s making change happen. Pioneer of the reuse movement, L’Occitane en Provence launched refill solutions as early as 2008 and now offers nearly 40 refill references. Its dedicated Biodiversity & Sustainable Ingredients Department works towards fair-trade supply chains and supports the ecological transition of its producers, while continuing to ensure the traceability and responsibility of its ingredients. The brand also monitors its energy and water impact through manufactures powered by 100% renewable energy and a dedicated programme to reduce water consumption. In the UK, every L’Occitane en Provence store is also powered by renewable electricity.

More broadly, the brand has adopted a science-based approach to sustainability, aligning its climate, biodiversity and circularity commitments with internationally recognised frameworks, including the SBTi climate targets, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Global Commitment. In 2023, the brand achieved B Corp Certification, reinforcing its commitment to high environmental and social standards.

Sharing the view that systemic change cannot happen in a vacuum, L’Occitane en Provence joined the Sustainable Beauty Coalition (SBC) in 2023 as a key member of the Coalition’s ‘brands and retailers taskforce’. More recently, it became a member of the SBC’s Steering Committee to help to drive the industry-wide green transition. As part of this work, L’Occitane en Provence has heavily supported projects such as the Great British Beauty Clean Up – a flagship SBC campaign to tackle waste and promote circularity.”

Rachel Meckes, Senior Sustainability Manager at L’Occitane en Provence, sits on the Sustainable Beauty Coalition’s Steering Committee.