Values and Mission Statement for Lucy Bee
Lucy Bee has quickly become renowned for the steps we are taking to ensure ethics and sustainability are at the forefront of what we do. We are making people realise the effects that using palm oil is having on the world by blurring the boundaries between products people want and making sure they are created to not only be effective and affordable but by also putting the environment first.
Lucy Bee is a lifestyle brand selling skincare and soap products all completely free from palm oil and with minimal use of plastic. Lucy Bee is concerned with Fair Trade, organic, ethical and sustainable living, recycling and empowering people to make informed choices and select quality, natural products for their skin.
What Does This Mean?
We pride ourselves on being completely open and honest with our customers, with a strong emphasis on being as ethical as possible in everything that we do. This not only covers the ingredients that we choose for our products but also covers our packaging and the way we handle your questions or inquiries.
We are passionate about Fair Trade and its benefits and strongly believe in the values of organic farming, supporting sustainable living and caring for the environment.
Fair Trade
We strongly believe in the importance of Fair Trade. In addition to the Fair Trade premium that we pay and is used for sustainable community projects that the farmers and workers who produce the products benefit from, we also pay an additional 0.75% of our total sales to the Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance (FairTSA) who certify our products. This contribution allows them to continue their good work of auditing and ensuring a better world for the producer communities.
What is FairTSA?
We work closely with the Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance (FairTSA), a non-profit organisation specialising in fair trade and social responsibility, standard development, ethical supply chain management and accountable, sustainable community development. Something which sets this organisation apart from others is that the local community directly benefits and has a say in how funds are spent to help improve their lives.
In the words of its Director, Winfried Fuchshofen PhD, "As a consumer, I can really make an impact and I'm not just buying a product to make sure the worker gets their minimum wage. I'm also contributing to the producer community that makes their life worthwhile."
Lucy Bee Coconut Oil, which is used in our skincare and Soaps, is produced in the Philippines and is certified Fair Trade. Those farmers and workers who produce the oil benefit from the Fair Trade premiums through:
• The building of two wells for fresh, safe water for the local community
• School scholarships for children of the workers
• Solar powered energy in the village communities
• Low-interest lending programs for the Philippine farmers
• A feeding program for malnourished children
• Funds for coconut planting to make this a sustainable and viable option for the community
• Insurance against crop failure; for family welfare; and accidents
A further benefit of working with FairTSA is that they guarantee that monkeys are not used to pick the coconuts, which is not always the case in some areas.
Supporting Charities
We take our social responsibility seriously. We support a chosen charity each year and have worked closely with Love Support Unite and their efforts in Malawi; the St. Francis Hospice in Romford; and this year the Soup Kitchen at the American International Church in London. To date, we’ve donated over £15400 to these charities, and this represents a donation that we make for every sale of our bath salts. We do this because we can’t buy these Fair Trade.
Lucy Bee actively supports charitable works and we prefer to work with smaller charities, so that contributions aren’t used up in admin or ‘red tape’.
For 2020, we’re working with:
The Soup Kitchen, London, UK
Our founder, Lucy, has been volunteering at The Soup Kitchen at the American International Church, London for some time. This charity feeds, clothes and provides mental health support to over 100 homeless and vulnerable people in London each day and none of that is possible without countless volunteers and donors.
Throughout 2020, the Soup Kitchen is our chosen charity to support. Additionally, one lady that Lucy met while volunteering was a 63-year-old homeless lady with a talent for art, and who sleeps rough in London train stations. Lucy asked this lady to design a Christmas card which we then sold on our store, giving the full proceeds of the sales to this homeless lady.
Previously, we’ve worked with the following charities:
The St. Francis Hospice, Romford, UK
Over the course of 1 year (2019), Lucy Bee donated £2917 (GBP), used to help “provide the highest quality end of life care that sadly so many in our community need. Every year we support around 1700 people in our community across a range of services all with the aim of helping our patients live with dignity regardless of their condition.”
Love Support Unite Africa
this is a small charity which works in Malawi to empower communities to become self-sufficient. Lucy Bee supported this charity for over 3 years (2016-2018), donating in excess of £12,500 (GBP) which has been used to fund 8 farms to feed and empower families and feed 450 pupils at the Mkunkhu school; build teachers’ homes at the school, allowing them the opportunity to provide evening classes to adults; sponsored orphans at the Tilinanu Orphanage, providing food, clothes and school supplies for one year.
Soap Donations
We’ve also donated our Organic Coconut Oil, which was used to treat ringworm and used for baby massage; and we’ve donated our Fragrance Free Soap bars to the charity. They confirm that these will be used as follows:
• The girls at the Tilinanu Orphanage each have a bar, per month, for 2 years
• 587 bars have been allocated to adult literacy classes to give each learner a bar after they pass their exams
• 274 bars have been given to the nursery schools to help teach good hygiene practice
• 447 soaps for mother and infant health to be given to women on completion of the course, especially the sanitation component
• 2000 will be used in famine relief packages
• The remainder will be allocated to help encourage local volunteer teachers, to be given in schools and hospitals
Bath Salt Donations
All of the above donations have largely been made up of contributions that Lucy Bee makes for the sale of our Bath Salts because we’re unable to buy these Fair Trade - we donate a sum of 15p to a chosen charity for every sale of our Bath Salts. We will continue to update this blog here on what impact these donations are having on the selected charity.
Organic
We totally buy in to the need to protect our individual health and the health of the planet by following organic ways of production and avoiding pesticides and intensive farming practices.
Our products are certified by the Soil Association as COSMOS Organic and meet their strict benchmarks. It may surprise you to know that this covers not only the ingredients used in our formulations but also covers organic production, packaging, animal welfare, wildlife conservation, residues and additives to reassure you the products meet the highest available organic standards. Read more here.
Ethical and Sustainable Living
The core values of being ethical and environmentally friendly are at the heart of Lucy Bee. We realise that we’re not perfect but we want you to know that we do the absolute best we can.
We value the professional certifications applied to our products and these are an assurance to you of the quality and integrity of the product. Add to this, our products are The Ethical Consumer Magazine’s Best Buys, where such things as supply chain and workers’ rights are taken into account.
This is a common thread which runs through all that we do.
Our products are certified by Cruelty Free International, which works to end animal experiments worldwide. It’s the best assurance that a company has made a genuine commitment to ending animal testing.
When you see the Cruelty Free/Leaping Bunny logo on our products, you are assured that that product meets rigorous criteria which applies globally and extends over and above laws governing animal testing and includes ongoing independent audits.
At Lucy Bee, we believe that beauty products should be cruelty free and this is why we are proud to be Cruelty Free/Leaping Bunny approved. Read more here.
Our products are certified Vegan by The Vegan Society who help businesses demonstrate that their products are certified Vegan. The sunflower logo is a well-established and respected symbol that gives customers confidence to try our products.
The Vegan Society logo promises you that the manufacture and/or development of the product, and where applicable its ingredients, must not involve, or have involved, the use of any animal product, by-product or derivative.
You can read more here.
The Ethical Consumer Guide is the UK’s leading guide to ethical consumerism and their ‘Ethical Best Buy’ logo carries considerable kudos, confirming the ethics behind the product.
Ethical Consumer are a UK independent, not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder co-operative with open membership, founded in 1989. They provide the tools and resources you need to make personal and ethical choices simple, informed and effective.
You can read more here.
Carbon Footprint
In the world of online shopping and demand for products from around the world, it’s unfortunately impossible to avoid carbon emissions. This is an area in which we’re conscious of doing something practical and we’ve looked at various schemes set up for carbon offsetting.
We want our offsets to be used productively and efficiently and feel the best way that we can help make a difference is by donating the equivalent carbon offset to our chosen charity. This year we’re supporting The Soup Kitchen at the American International Church in Tottenham Court Road, London, UK. We make a donation to the charity for every order shipped from our warehouse.
No Monkeys
With all the talk about monkeys being used to pick coconuts in the media, Lucy Bee can say with certainty that we do not, and will never, use monkeys to pick coconuts which are used in our products.
Palm Free Promise
A big part of our ethical ethos is caring for the environment and it’s for this reason that we choose not to use palm oil or any of its derivatives in our products.
Palm oil is used in numerous everyday products from foods, to makeup and skincare and the huge increase in demand has led to mass deforestation to make way for the planting of oil palm trees. With its negative effects on the environment, habitats and livelihoods, we have made it our mission to create products which do NOT use palm oil.
This is not easy, especially when you consider that many ingredients used in skincare include a derivative of palm oil, and it’s not always obvious that it’s been used. For example, some emulsifiers are sourced from either palm oil or coconut and the manufacturer of the emulsifier may not differentiate the source. We can confirm that no derivatives of palm oil are used in any of our products.
You can read more on this here.
Our Packaging
At Lucy Bee, we believe that part of our Social Responsibility is to care for the environment.
While we insist that our products are the best quality available, we also insist on using recyclable packaging. We make every effort to minimise our packaging and to use only the most sustainable materials available to us. We realise that we’re not perfect, but we do our very best to be as eco-friendly as we can.
Skincare Cartons and Liners
All of our decorative cartons and inner liners are made of recyclable cardboard and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
The FSC system “promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world’s forests.” Simply put, this means the FSC ensure forests are managed to support nature and, helps local people and incentivises them to sustain the forest resources, in a viable manner.
Glass Jars, Bottles and Aluminium Tubes
We use glass jars and bottles (the most easily recyclable material) with aluminium lids for the majority of our products.
Our Cleanser comes in an aluminium tube. We’ve chosen this material because it is completely recyclable everywhere. As you’re no doubt aware, this is quite a soft material and can dent easily but we believe that this is a small price to pay compared to the dent on the planet if we were to choose another material which cannot be easily recycled!
Our Soap Bars
For our Soaps, in addition to the FSC outer card box, the soap bar is wrapped in a recyclable PP plastic flow-wrap. Though we’d prefer not to use this, it’s a necessity because of the unique formulation of the soap, as I will explain here.
Many soaps are made using palm oil but one made wholly of coconut oil, as ours is, is uncommon. With its better foaming and lathering qualities than soaps made with palm oil, this unique formula means the soap can sweat, which presents something of a challenge to us in storing it, hence the use of flow wrap. Please be assured that the packaging weight is minimised. We are trialling a biodegradable flow wrap and as soon as this is a viable option, we will use this to wrap our Soap bars.
Shipping Products to You
To ship your order to you, even though our prime concern is to make sure it arrives with you as we would like to receive an order ourselves, we’re also conscious of sticking to our values of caring for the environment.
Charlie and his team in our warehouse take pride in packing your items using:
• recyclable boxes
• recyclable and biodegradable zigzag shredded paper, made from 100% recycled material
• recyclable paper tape to seal the box
We put as much effort into sourcing our environmentally friendly packaging as we do the actual products. No stone is left unturned as we look at all the options available to us, always with an eye on reflecting our ethics and at the same time making sure the packaging is fit for purpose. We’re not fans of plastic and avoid using it where we can.
Plastics
Throughout our range we avoid plastic where at all possible and while we accept that we’re not perfect, please know that we are doing our very best to completely eliminate its use.
In our packaging, we use recyclable glass jars, aluminium tubes and card cartons over plastic containers
Recycling
In an effort to be as environmentally-friendly as possible, we encourage recycling of our packaging, in your household waste – if in doubt, we recommend talking to your local waste disposal company and they can guide you further.
Recycling can help reduce waste going to landfill; saves energy; and conserves natural resources, such as timber.
