Jamie Richards - Inside Bansk Beauty’s Regenerative Shea Project in Uganda

[00:00:10] Adam: Hello and welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:12] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:16] Adam: From entrepreneurs to artists, scientists to activists, this podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Adam.

[00:00:24] Dominique: And I'm Dominique.

[00:00:25] Adam: Today we are joined by Jamie Richards. Jamie is the director of ESG Environmental Social Governance at Bansk Beauty, which is the home to brands like Amika, Eva NYC, and Ethique.

So Jamie leads the efforts to integrate sustainability into core business strategies. She uses scientific data sustainability metrics, and consumer technology to give results in an understandable way. Last time we got to hear from Jamie on her journey into sustainability, how she really got her foot in the door, and used her own agency to basically launch B Corp within the company she's working at.

Bansk Beauty is the home to many brands that we know and love. Can you tell us a little bit about the company?

[00:01:04] Jamie: So I didn't know a company like this actually existed or that I would be working for Bansk Beauty one day. I just started working for Amika and Eva NYC, and then in May of 2022, we were acquired by Bansk Private Equity group. And the private equity group owns a lot of different consumer packaged good companies.

But then they also have pharmaceuticals and pesticides and really just a lot of what you categorize as consumer packaged foods. And part of that consumer portfolio are the beauty products. And right now it comprises of Amika, Eva NYC and a brand that was acquired before us, Ethique. And as of June of 2024, I got pulled outta the brand platform and I work above all the brands now on what's called the Bransk Beauty Platform, in which I work on the current brands and the portfolio, but I also work on acquisitions as well. So assessing other brands for sustainability efforts and if they enter our portfolio, what can we do with them, potential risk, opportunities, things like that. And actually, as of monday, Bansk just acquired another brand called BYOMA, which is a skincare brand, and so there is potential that I'll work on them too. I'm very excited about it.

[00:02:10] Dominique: Wow. Big news happening live. You introduced us a little bit in the last episode of telling us about your journey into ESG and kind of how you first started making an impact. But can you remind us what does ESG look like at Bansk?

What

 kind of things are you working on and how do you look at that with different kinds of products?

[00:02:29] Jamie: So ESG is Environment Social Governance, and I like to call it sustainability plus. And it really looks at sustainability and a lot of different places that it could live in within a company. And so that could be employee behavior within your own company and like how your office is oriented, even the building that you might obtain.

It could be your entire value chain. And so looking at your contract manufacturers or your factories that you work with, it could go all the way back to ingredient transparency in the beauty space and what you're sourcing. And then it can look at consumer behavior and need as well. Within our own company, ESG lives everywhere that I can, and it took some time to really integrate this well into our business.

I started out on our purchasing procurement team, and so that's where it started in our company. But then I sprawled out like a sustainability power site infecting everyone in the company. I don't know if they would like that analogy, but that's what I'm using. But really we made sure that everyone in the company caught the sustainability bug. And it lives in our product development team.

So when we brief a new product that we wanna launch, or maybe that we're reformulating, my team gets briefed with the ingredient portfolio. So we make sure that there's any ingredients that could have sustainability risks or people risk as well, we flag them, we check them out, we make sure that they're responsibly sourced and safe.

It lives within our regulatory and compliance team. So my team also handles all sustainability legislation that's been rolled out over the last couple years, making sure that we're compliant. It lives within our own team within carbon accounting, which we fully own and operate, as well as lifecycle analysis that we integrate throughout whatever business processes might need it. We work with our marketing teams and our brand management teams to make sure that it's a core pillar of our company. And then I also work with executives as well.

And so I myself sit on our Bransk Beauty Executive level team and I report it to our board to make sure that we keep up with their ESG standards. So they have their own internal standards called the five goods, which looks at five different consumer categories to make sure that we're adherent to different ESG principles.

And then I even report up above them as well in terms of who are their stakeholders, so different banks that might be investing in our private equity group and I assist in that in those reportings as well. And so sustainability lives in so many places in our company. There's really not a space where it doesn't exist. 

[00:04:48] Dominique: You navigate so many stakeholders. I mean, you're thinking about the consumer and we spoke last time about the decision making aspect of adoption of products and the consumers looking for. But then you also are doing a lot with leadership, and especially having like multiple levers of ownership. Can you tell us just how big is the organization? How big is your team? Give us some sense of the different folks you're working with? 

[00:05:11] Jamie: So Amika is our largest brand and there's about 200 people that work for Amika. And then Eva is our medium brand and there's about 50 people that work for Eva NYC. And then Ethique is our smallest brand, and I believe that there's about 20 people that work for their brands, so very different size brands.

And my team, including myself, is a team of five, and they work on each of the businesses. So I have two people who work for Amika. They're actually both Ohio State alum, which is also where I went. And then I have one person who works for Eva NYC on sustainability, and then one for Ethique as well.

And they all dually report into me. And then our supply chain leads as well. And I do that because that's where most of the sustainability data and work, at least how we organize it in our company comes from. And so it's really nice for them to be further integrated in those teams. And so they do sit independently on the ESG sustainability team, but I have them really integrate in those teams as well. And so they're like split in between 

[00:06:13] Dominique: That's awesome. And speaking of supply chain, obviously being a big part of a lot of the work that you're doing, I wanna get into your champion story. I know one big initiative and project that you've championed is around regenerative ag. Can you tell us what that is and a little bit about how that project has come to life?

[00:06:32] Jamie: Yes. So it started because I was really committed to finding the full transparency of our ingredient scopes and what we source. I didn't know what a challenge it would be until we started. And this is just the nature of how the beauty industry is structured. And so you might go to one of your formula suppliers and you say, I want you to make this formula and I want you to perform this way, and maybe I want you to source this one specific ingredient. But then the factory is going to create the formula with everything else they have on hand. And then you might say, okay. Here are the ingredients in this formula. Can you give me information on each one of these ingredients? And they're gonna give you another vendor that you then have to look into. And that vendor is gonna give you another vendor of maybe where they source that ingredient.

And before you know it, you go down to what is called typically a tier four or tier five supplier. And it takes so long and it often gets lost along the way. because different ingredient vendors might consider actually where your ingredients originate to be proprietary information.

And I was getting really disheartened and frustrated with the process. And so I started to look into what would be, in my opinion, the most sustainable sourcing that we can do and I thought of regenerative agriculture. Which we weren't really seeing within the beauty industry, but I was seeing a lot in food. And in fashion as well, which is a lot of times where I see sustainability initiatives start and then kind of trickle into the beauty industry.

And so it's been really good indicator of what's to come next as I, you know, do my own sustainability trend forecast as well. But beyond the trend, I was interested in regenerative ag because it's actually a return to an old system or to an actually a native growing practice. So if anyone is familiar with what's called The Three Sisters, which is when you grow corn, beans, and squash altogether, because they all harmonize in the soil and fuel the earth and create what's called carbon sequestration, which is removal of carbon from the air and into the soil. That is regenerative agriculture.

It's a system that continually refuels itself and will sustain itself for an entire generation and they'll want to come next and next after that. And it's expensive to turn over an agricultural field from conventional to regenerative. It's an investment to make, but my company has a climate transition budget. And this climate transition budget is basically a broad bucket that we allocate each year to invest in what we like to call insetting.

So basically you have a carbon offset and that's paying somebody else to take responsibility for your carbon footprint. But a carbon inset is paying it to yourself to take care of your carbon And so I was thinking about regenerative agriculture in regions that we have to source ingredients from. Like Africa, which is where a lot of endemic or ingredients that are only grown in one place are found. So think of Argon or baobab or in this particular instance, Shea, for us. And you can't source them anywhere else in the world. They only grow here. I was looking to do a little bit more and to do what I like to call more and then some.

Because I wanted to start an entirely new supply chain for beauty, but I wanted to get credit for all of that carbon we were removing outta the environment. So not only did we start regenerative supply chain which Shea, which is in Okere city in Uganda with our partner Forested. But we also created a dual stream of income for the collective that we source because we credited their lands for these carbon insets or impact units, that they can actually sell to other businesses. So they get the commodity profit, but then they the inset profit as well. And that goes completely back to the collective.

[00:10:11] Dominique: That's beautiful. And remind us, what's the value of Shea?why is that such an important ingredient for you and some of the products that you are working on?

[00:10:20] Jamie: Gosh, there's so much Shea within the beauty industry, but it's a plant butter, it's a really nice plant butter. And it works for moisturizing and hydration and often if you have a body butter or a hair mask or even sometimes a lotion, you typically have some sort of plant butter in there.

And it's probably often shea butter. 

In order to get a raw material ready to sell in the cosmetic industry, you actually have to do a lot of testing, which is very expensive. You have to make sure that there's no heavy metal contamination or allergens. You have to make sure that the ingredient is shelf stable. And every time you sell a raw material to a company, you have to do what's called a certificate of analysis, which tells you all of the information about this ingredient. And it takes a lot of business knowledge and investment, but when we partnered with Forested and Okere City to build, adopt this regenerative supply chain, we offered that business knowledge as part of our partnership.

And so we were able to accelerate the shelf stability and all the testing by just providing the knowledge of how to do that. And we made sure that this Shea is certified actually to an EU gold standard so they can sell this product anywhere in the world and a beauty company would be able to sell it depending on whatever market they sell in. Which was really important because although we're gonna be the first ones to take this shea to market, it's not proprietary to us. And the intention was for it to never be. We want other beauty companies to be able to buy the shea and, you know, engage with the impact units and the amazing collective that we've now partnered with. It's not meant for just us.

[00:11:56] Adam: And now this sounds really complicated just overall, but how do you measure the impact of a project like this? 

[00:12:01] Jamie: Measuring the carbon removal has been pretty straightforward. You just measure the carbon contact and soil, but then how do you measure the greater success? And so we're seeing indicators of how you can measure the impact of this in different ways so jobs created. So there's been 70 jobs that have been created so far within the Okere City collective, and 60% of those jobs are for women, which is really exciting, especially as beauty industry, it's very dominated by women. So we love to see it.

You can also measure it by the jobs created within a software firm. So to manage all the farms in the impact unit, we partnered with a firm in Ethiopia, because the goal was to really keep this entire project and supply chain centralized in East Africa. And so you could look at the success of the creation of that software that can then again, be used and distributed by the farmers. You can look at it as success for inspiration. So our supply chain is now being used as a model for another supply chain that they're starting in Kenya. And the Nature Conservancy is actually sponsoring that supply chain and copying the model that has been started with this Shea supply chain.

And now we get access to all these other amazing ingredients in Kenya but I don't have to put the bill, which is nice. Because there's only so much that I could do within our climate transition budget. And so it's wonderful to see, you know, more inspiration within the region. You know, you can also do within like integrated products and sold, and so I can't say what product it is, but our first product with this Shea will hit the market in March. But it will actually be rolled out throughout the entire Amika portfolio, within every product that has Shea butter in it. It will live and replace all of our other conventional shea that we had before. 

[00:13:40] Dominique: That's amazing.Hopefully all things go well, but that is really exciting. I also love that you mentioned the Nature Conservancy because this season we had a guest, the Nature Conservancy. So it's just cool to see how all organizations collaborate You unpacked Shea specifically, but to give us a sense, how many ingredients go into one product?

[00:13:59] Jamie: you can have up to 20 ingredients within a product, maybe even more. It kind of depends on what it is. An aerosol might not have as many ingredients, but something like a hair mask or a conditioner can have many more. Typically our conditioners have more ingredients and it's because you have to work to stabilize, like all the plant butters that you're using and you might use a lot of derivatives.

And people I don't think often know what derivatives are. You could think of it as like a processed ingredient, but I don't want anyone to hear the word 'process' and be like, oh, it's bad for the environment. I'm sure everyone's heard of glycerin. Glycerin is a derivative of palm or coconut oil, so it's these really common ingredients, but they're made up of a lot of other ingredients.

[00:14:40] Adam: So sometimes when you're working on ingredient transparency, you'll hit a derivative and then that might split into four other ingredients that comprises it. And so, sometimes you just have to make the decision of okay, well where am I gonna stop tracing this? And then sometimes you might say okay, it's palm. I need to make sure that that is responsibly sourced. Because although palm itself It's actually a very sustainable ingredient, the origin of how palm is grown could be a very unsustainable ingredient because a lot of times palm fields are originated from [] agriculture or can have issues of children or women labor, being paid unfairly or just, you know, should not have children labor overall. And so if you hit something like a palm deritive, you'll wanna do your due diligence.So we've been talking a lot about like sustainability at the product level. Looking at the brand level, Ethique is an early leader as a zero waste brand. First, can you tell us a little bit about that? 

[00:15:28] Jamie: Yes. So Ethique was founded by actually a chemist whose goal was to eliminate the idea of plastic waste. And so that brand is completely plastic free in packaging and in formulas as well. And so at is a really special brand because it's not how you would think of your average shampoo conditioner. They're shampoo and conditioner brand. And so it looks like a bar of soap, but it's shampoo and conditioner and it's concentrated. And so where maybe your standard shampoo conditioner might have 20-30% active ingredients, Ethique has 80% active ingredients. And so the formula is really pack a punch.

My hair today, nice and shiny, is actually brought to you by Ethique shampoo and conditioner and some even makeup product. I use all the products. But that's actually what I just used in my hair. And the brand has really evolved over time. It actually relaunched its shape and packaging last year because now the shampoo is shaped in a half moon and you can use it to like actually fit to your scalp. So it's really easy 

[00:16:26] Dominique: Oh, I love that. 

[00:16:27] Jamie: Yeah, to apply. And then the conditioner is in a triangle shape so you can comb it through your hair. And it's super smart and I think it's a really genius way to do it. But that brand is what I like to call a consciously founded brand. And so when I began working on it, I actually hit the most challenges because I'm so used to working for what I like to call conventionally founded brands. Which I'm like, okay, we could go into the supply chain and we do X, Y, and z and here's how you integrate a brand that maybe hadn't started out sustainable. And then I had this extremely sustainable brand and I was kind of like, Oh no, what do I do?

Like how do I set goals because the packaging is already compostable, I was like, oh, well we'll work on the supplier. Suppliers there's this guy from New Zealand. He is I already measure all my scope one to three emissions and I offset it. And I was like, of course you do. Of course New Zealand. I was like, okay, what do I do? And then I was kind of like, is there anything to do on this brand? It's so good already. But there is, we do have some. 

[00:17:18] Adam: Yeah. How do you do that? Like how do you make an impact when the company's already ahead of the curve?.

[00:17:22] Jamie: Yeah. a lot of it that we're looking at Ethique is just selling it as a shampoo conditioner and not just as a sustainable offering because the products themselves are really wonderful. And they foam really nicely in the shower. Like it's a very luxurious feel. If anyone is interested in a bar, every conditioner brand, I actually very much recommend this one. 

 I think I worked for the brand for six months before I tried the bars And then I did. And I was like, oh my God. I'm like, they're actually so good. And I have all the brands in my shower, but it's definitely one that I, I like reach for a really good cleanse. And they're really fantastic products.

And so the goal with Ethique is just to sell it as a brand, like your shampoo conditioners, because we get a lot of people who are looking for exclusively sustainable solutions who buy Ethique what ,we're trying to reach to the consumer that is just looking for a really good shampoo conditioner brand at a mass price point, which is the same price point as our other brand Ethique. And so that's actually the challenge with Ethique which, like for Amika and Eva NYC, we're reaching more of your conventional consumer, but we want that more sustainable consumer to know that we have all of these amazing offerings and you know, we're a B Corp and we pay a carbon tax and we invest our budget, all those things. And so it's funny we get very opposite challenges of the brand and what we need to do, so. 

[00:18:35] Dominique: Yeah. And I appreciate your honesty when it comes to the fact that you took a little while to get used to the bars. I know anybody, like most people, I think either you're using a shampoo conditioner bar because you're trying to be sustainable or maybe you're a little apprehensive for how it's going to compare to what you're usually used to.

And I have a very full head of curly hair. And so I understand like the sometimes my options are more limited than I would like them to be personally for that kind of thing. So that's really awesome. I also love that Ethique is finding its own like edge and turning the bar into its own like new tool.

I think that's a really positive way to be like, well, we are navigating a bar. What can a bar do that a bottle of liquid can't? And I think that like shape that like thoughtful shaping is how you're gonna break the mold in the industry like this. 

[00:19:25] Jamie: But I think it's really cool to think about like the bar, for example, as a really forward facing aspect because you talked about shea and agriculture, which you as a consumer can't always see, put your hands on, understand. Which is where I think a lot of like the waste conversation is at the forefront because we can see it. You can sell that, change you're making a little bit more readily.

[00:19:48] Dominique: But how do you think about telling consumers to look for products when they're trying to be conscious to their hair, their bodies, the planet.

If I'm walking into my local Ulta, or anywhere Amika products are sold, what do I look for at the store?

[00:20:02] Jamie: So there are some certifications that are really good indicators if a brand would have them on shelf or even on their products. So, the climate label is a really great one. That means that a brand is measuring and paying a carbon tax voluntary. There's also B Corp, which all of our brands have, which is an overall business level certification and that covers environmental impact but it also looks at how do you treat your employees, what protections do you have for your consumers? How do you treat your community? And then even on a really high level, your governing structure. You can also look at retail programs.

So at Ulta you have the Ulta Conscious Beauty Program, and you have five different pillars that you can engage in. And so some brands are five pillar brands, but some of them might just have two to three. And so there's a packaging pillar, there's a vegan, a cruelty free, a clean, and then a giving back.

Our brand has all of them and our Eva brand has almost all of them as well. And then for Sephora, you have their global, clean and planet aware program. And so these are again, seals that you can see online or in store on the shelf strip. And that program is really intensive. If you're planet aware, it covers ingredients, packaging, consumer communication, and impact, as well as a lot of sourcing and climate work as well. So it's very involved and to go through an additional as well. And so our Amika brand has that, and they also have global team too, which means that they pull themselves to a higher standard of ingredient listed and safety.

So you can look for that. I also always encourage people to check out a brand's website. It's a really big indication if a brand has a sustainability page, a sustainability report.And you can find them all on the website and you can look at the information maybe if you don't read the full report and you can see what a brand is doing. And I think it speaks volume if a brand is taking its time and resources to create one. And so don't be afraid to look up a brand and check that out.

[00:21:58] Adam: Looking to the future what are the things that you're most excited about working on in the next year? 

[00:22:01] Jamie: I am most excited on continuing to develop and expand their regenerative ag programming. This feels honestly, I, I said this to someone. I was like, this feels like the most impactful thing I've done ever. I'm also excited for some really cool packaging innovations. And so we've been scoping what that could be and what the next iteration of sustainable packaging could be. And I'm also excited for honestly, the next generation of people to come into the workforce for sustainable beauty.

Dominique also works with the OSU sustainability students each semester. And it's so wonderful to just see them interested and to see the passion grow and honestly, the department grow each year, not just within then Ohio State where we went, but other schools as well. And it just that excites me the most is to see what the next iteration of sustainability workers are going to do. Even just within my own team, I'm so excited to see my team develop and grow. They have taken things that I've started to such a different level than I've ever been able to take them to, and I'm constantly just impressed with their ingenuity and the processes that they build and their own spin on sustainability that they bring to the table. And so I'm excited for what they do now.

[00:23:11] Dominique: When you think about the change you wanna see in the beauty industry. What that change would take, it sounds like from what you just said, that it's like ingenuity, the right people, being willing to be creative and be part of that. Is there anything I'm missing there that you feel when you think about what that gap is right now?

[00:23:31] Jamie: So I think one of the most challenging things about integrating sustainability within business is orienting sustainability for business, which takes some time and skill to get used to. And a lot of times you have to get creative on how you might budget something or how you might present something to a company and being able to take some sort of sustainability principle and put it through the lens of traditional business is how I personally have been most successful.

And if something is too expensive, I work with a company and I say, charge me an environmental service fee and charge what you would normally charge for the conventional so we can move sustainability agenda forward without feeling like our budgets are impacted. And so it's getting creative with your budget, with your personnel, and also with your current supply chains, but making it seem like nothing has changed, which is the challenge.

[00:24:25] Dominique: So much easier said than done. Or maybe not even easier said than done. I feel like that probably sounded really challenging. But that's what excites me.Well, I am so glad we could have you on to hear your story and the work that you're doing. I think one thing that really stood out to me in you talking through the different efforts you're championing, which I think you focus a lot on regenerative ag and you're excited about it, but I want you to know that so much kudos from at least Adam and myself, let alone I'm sure all our listeners who are listening, but so much kudos for all the different aspects.

I mean, the things you've already accomplished are also like examples that are continuing to lead other beauty brands. And I loved, I think a big thing in sustainability is people, planet, profit. And when you were explaining Shea and regenerative ag and the impact, the changes you've made have also had on that community. And why there's some areas, for example, Ethiopia region where that supply is limited because of the people, and things that are going on, I think you've really articulated why there's the value in having that balance.

And looking at it holistically, because if we take care of the people and contribute to the economy and start a strong community, you're gonna have strong supply chains and resources and then give back to those folks, and that it's gonna contribute to profits for you and the community. And I just love that you gave us a really tangible example of seeing that in real life. So thank you for sharing that.

How can listeners support you and connect with the work that you're doing? 

[00:25:55] Jamie: The best way to find me is on linkedIn. You could search Jamie Richards, and then type in any of the brands that I work for, and I'll pop up. 

[00:26:03] Adam: We'll include all the brands in the show notes. But if you're looking around for Bansk beauty brands, you're looking for Ethique, Amika, and Eva NYC. With that, thank you so much for joining us. 

[00:26:14] Jamie: Thanks for having me. 

[00:26:15] Adam: As always, our guests have found a unique way to champion sustainability. We're here to put real names and stories behind the idea that no matter your background, career or interests, you really can contribute in the fight against climate change.

[00:26:27] Dominique: You can find our episodes at thegreenchampions.com. If you wanna stay in the loop, give us a review and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. If you have questions about climate change or sustainability, you can reach us on our website, thegreenchampions.com. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks listening to Green Champions.

We'll dig into another sustainability success story in our next episode.