We've partnered on a new framework seeking to enshrine the 9 million species who share our home. Dr. Vanessa Handley is a botanist and conservation biologist working in biodiversity hotspots around the world.
DR. VANESSA HANDLEY: Where did the biodiversity focus at Lore come from?
MELANIE BENDER, FOUNDER: I've been in sustainability, has it been 20 years? But this started with a conversation with my dad. He’s a Marine Biologist focused on deep sea ecosystems, ecosystems we know less about than the surface of the moon. With each of my brands, I’ve tried to integrate sustainability in an impact-driven way. I’d been committed to climate being the thing to focus on, including one initiative that made it to the White House. My dad and I were talking about the extinction crisis, and I said, “Well, climate action is the thing for that.” And he said, “Melanie, climate's a part of it, but it's a relatively small part of it.” That blew my mind. We talked about the myriad ways humans are encroaching on ecosystems, most of which weren’t factoring into how the beauty industry thinks about its sustainability. That got me keyed into biodiversity preservation being where I wanted to focus at Lore. The statistics are terrifying. One million species are threatened with extinction1. In business, we have answers to climate and waste and water and toxicity, but we don’t have answers for preserving these species. Everything is possible with this brand. The question became, if we were to build something from scratch, what should we do? I wanted to understand it from people doing the conservation work, which led me to writing you a cold email.
One million species are threatened with extinction.
VANESSA: It was out of the blue, and that's what made it totally exciting and welcome. The basic premise was to determine how a right-minded brand could navigate the biodiversity conservation space and have a meaningful impact. Having a partner ready to engage in this way from the get-go was exceptional and really exciting. Especially in this sector. It's hard to think of an industry outside of strict agriculture that is as reliant on natural ingredients as fragrance.
MELANIE: And yet there is often not a lot of mixing between our industry and conservation. What led you into the fragrance space?
VANESSA: Plant conservation, like all conservation, is underfunded. But the bucket for plants is extraordinarily small relative to the ecosystem services they provide. The charismatic megafauna–the rhinos, pandas, the ones with stuffed animals–they hook people. I'm not immune. When I'm in the field and there's a giraffe, I get excited. But there's such animal focus that it's tough to get anything done that’s plant or habitat focused. Hence the emphasis on corporate partnerships both for financial support and to enhance visibility. In the conservation sector there can be skepticism about corporate partnerships but, especially with what's happened with funding overall, I think we need to rethink our models. There are lots of companies whose missions are genuinely aligned with conservation principles, and others who can be compelled to align. I see the beauty sector, specifically fragrance companies, as key because they are very reliant on natural ingredients. Of all industries, it's one in which there should be some baseline commitment to biodiversity. Naturals are what drives the fragrance industry.
MELANIE
"Everything is possible with this brand. So the question became, if we were to build something from scratch, what should we do?”
MELANIE: Fragrance is not just reliant on naturals, it champions them. When I talk about the notes, I’m talking about natural origin ingredients. I’m talking about plants. But beauty is not really thinking about this. So how do we do that?
VANESSA: There is no magic, I wish there were. The solutions are really complicated, and they involve millions of tiny actions.
MELANIE: That's what felt so different about the extinction crisis, compared to waste and climate. We feel impotent trying to address it. But if we don't address it, we end up in just a really dire and sad place.
VANESSA: It starts with being first in the water. And you've done this before with other initiatives that have ripple effects and compel engagement on a larger scale in the industry. This particular company and model excites me for everything it can become.
MELANIE: That's the goal, to create a framework around species preservation that we invite other people into. Our work together started focused around a do-no-harm commitment. I wanted to understand how this new business would impact species and address those impacts as much as possible. We talked about our glass and the alcohol in our Eau de parfums, but became most focused on the natural ingredients going into our scents. We worked with our fragrance houses to get information on all our natural origin ingredients–down to the species, country of origin and harvestation method–and put together a green, yellow and red light system. Green light ingredients are safe to source commercially. Red light ingredients are known to be at-risk species and should not be harvested. And yellow light ingredients fall into a big gray area of possible indirect impacts, and require deeper probing. That could be because they’re coming from an economically depressed area or where there’s a lot of deforestation for agricultural land. This process took a year from end to end. But it didn’t end there. We have the two arms of our program: do-no-harm commitment and conservation-at-source.
DR. VANESSA HANDLEY
“Natural ingredients are what drives the fragrance industry.”
VANESSA: Once we had that do-no-harm framework in a good place, it allowed us to consider what positive change Lore could create. We don't have enough champions for plants and biodiversity as a whole, and those that are out there often lack proper funding for their critical work. Direct-to-source conservation support is a powerful mechanism to change this dynamic. With rare exceptions, the fabric of any regional conservation quilt is composed of many small projects. So a lot of what I work on is getting funding to on-the-ground practitioners in Cuba, Ecuador, Uganda and other centers of biodiversity. Even if the pools of money are initially quite finite, they're impactful because they are going directly to a project, to practitioners with the passion and commitment to make whatever contribution they can.
MELANIE: Building out conservation-at-source was a really beautiful process. We started by looking at the 36 biodiversity hotspots around the world, these small areas that are so important for genetic biodiversity and nature's contribution to people. We all benefit from enshrining them. Within these we looked at where our funds could have a significant impact and that were connected to our brand or business. That led to our first partner, in Hawai’i where I’m from and where our Sublimity fragrance is rooted. The National Tropical Botanical Garden’s Limahuli Preserve is important to many of the endemic species in Hawai’i. There are species that exist nowhere else outside of this preserve because of the work they're doing. I was drawn to it for its conservation, but then I discovered this incredible humanity and spirituality from how the team relates to the land. It’s been stewarded by the same Native Hawaiian family for 500 years. It’s created such connection to the species, which is what drives the conservation. That helped me see that one of my desires is to reawaken that connection we have inside all of us, to feel respect and love for the species who share our home. Because this brand has always been about connection. For this family, it’s the connection to this valley in Hawai’i. For someone else, it could be the land where they grew up, or even to the endemic species in their backyard. What desires are driving you?
DR. VANESSA HANDLEY
“The entire fabric of the conservation quilt is lots of small projects.”
VANESSA: I’m motivated by being able to tell the stories of more of these small projects, spotlighting the champions already doing good work. Particularly the young conservationists that are going to be sorting out this mess long after we're gone. I work in a lot of different places where there's great need, and these amazing practitioners often don’t have a seat at the table or mechanisms to be heard and seen. With respect to the fragrance industry, I want to create more conversations about the sourcing of natural ingredients and the companies that supply those. We have to think creatively about how to generate more dollars for projects in biodiversity hotspots and many of these hotspots are in places that also supply natural ingredients agriculturally or through forest extraction. So we see small-scale farmers butting up against natural areas to produce vanilla, vetiver, tonka. If we can start coupling biodiversity initiatives with these small-scale production centers, local growers can become integrated as biodiversity champions. And a greater part of an economic circle that right now is not super equitable. Turning back to you, what should we leave people with?
MELANIE: A big part of it is hope. Believing that we have the potential to change our fate. None of us want these species to go extinct. We want our children and our children's children to have these incredible ecosystems intact, supporting the communities that rely on them, generating the incredible medicines that come out of the natural world. We're all aligned in that want. I want us to feel hope to contribute to that outcome through our day-to-day actions. More specifically in beauty, we need to take greater ownership of the impacts of our business. Through our review process, we found one species in use that was red listed by the IUCN2 as endangered and another that was vulnerable. We all know we should not be making perfume out of endangered species. But without someone taking responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen, it happens. I want to get us all moving a little bit more slowly. To get us open to asking more questions and pushing for answers. It’s why I wanted to do my own brand, because I wanted to do it the right way.
1 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment, 2019
2 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species
