We care deeply about the environment
Becoming a healthy environment focused company requires deciding which actions you can take that make the most difference, as well as deciding which parts of environmental health you want to pursue.
We began our journey focused on reducing/eliminating the use of plastics as we learned about plastic waste choking our oceans. We then learned that the majority of plastics in oceans don’t come from the United states, rather from less affluent countries with a lot of coastline.
Therefore, we are targeting a reduction in carbon footprint, which we can impact. Here are a few of the actions we’ve taken in this direction:
Reducing the use of Coconut and Palm Oil is harder said than done due to the properties they bring to skin care. We’ve sharply reduced Coconut Oil and eliminated Palm oil from bath soap, which we make in quantity. We don’t use Palm Oil for shaving soap, but have to use Stearic and Myristic Acid, which are usually distilled from Palm Oil.
The alternative to Palm/Palm derived products for shaving soap is beef tallow, which is the fat from beef cattle. Most people know about deforestation of the Amazon for cattle pastures. Also, the digestive process of cattle produces greenhouse gases. If we were to use beef tallow, it would have to come from cattle in the US. The US beef industry is driven by the meat, with the tallow being a side product, leading us to conclude that using locally sourced tallow has a better carbon footprint than Palm related products.
We are doing many other environmentally friendly actions, which we’ll share in further posts.
We began our journey focused on reducing/eliminating the use of plastics as we learned about plastic waste choking our oceans. We then learned that the majority of plastics in oceans don’t come from the United states, rather from less affluent countries with a lot of coastline.
Therefore, we are targeting a reduction in carbon footprint, which we can impact. Here are a few of the actions we’ve taken in this direction:
- We are sourcing raw materials as close to us as possible. Coconut and Palm Oil travel a very long way to get to the US. Cargo ships are notorious polluters that contribute roughly 5% of greenhouse gases. We learned that farmers in Georgia are growing olives and purchase olive oil from them. Farmers in Colorado grow sunflowers, so we get oil from them. We use these two oils as much as we can.
- We are moving away from Palm Oil. We have concern that Sustainable Palm Oil available to smaller companies may come from deforested lands.
Reducing the use of Coconut and Palm Oil is harder said than done due to the properties they bring to skin care. We’ve sharply reduced Coconut Oil and eliminated Palm oil from bath soap, which we make in quantity. We don’t use Palm Oil for shaving soap, but have to use Stearic and Myristic Acid, which are usually distilled from Palm Oil.
The alternative to Palm/Palm derived products for shaving soap is beef tallow, which is the fat from beef cattle. Most people know about deforestation of the Amazon for cattle pastures. Also, the digestive process of cattle produces greenhouse gases. If we were to use beef tallow, it would have to come from cattle in the US. The US beef industry is driven by the meat, with the tallow being a side product, leading us to conclude that using locally sourced tallow has a better carbon footprint than Palm related products.
We are doing many other environmentally friendly actions, which we’ll share in further posts.