Welcome to this Green Beauty Opinion in which Formula Botanica CEO Lorraine Dallmeier picks up on an important issue raised in the previous episode on carbon neutral beauty in her interview with the co-founders of BYBI Beauty. BYBI’s Elsie Rutterford and Dominika Minorovic said that to date, the time, effort and money spent on developing BYBI as a truly sustainable brand was not making a mark on consumer consciousness as a key reason to choose their brand’s products. Is sustainability not such a big issue for consumers after all? Lorraine quotes several leading opinion polls conducted in the past few years that tell a different story showing consumers are keen to buy from brands that put sustainability at the heart of their business. Lorraine points out that there is a clear mismatch between what consumers say they are doing or wish to do and what they are actually doing at the point of purchase. They are simply not voting with their wallets and choosing brands that embed sustainability in their DNA. Why is this? Some polls show that consumers don’t know how to tell if a brand or product is sustainable. So does the blame lie with the brands or the consumers? This grey area of responsibility blurs the action needed now which is for us all to reduce our consumption and go out of our way to question the brands we buy from. With greenwashing still rife - as we have heard in our episodes on waterless beauty and biodegradablity - we all as consumers need to take the responsibility for sustainability and not lay the blame elsewhere. Listen in for a thought-provoking five minutes that challenges us to be the voice of change and integrity, making the beauty industry better and more sustainable.