January : The Everglades, Sustainability in the Beauty Industry
An act of environmental protection in our own backyard!
With all the unusual happenings this year, we want to take a moment to reflect on the positives in 2020. While the pandemic took hold, people stood up and continued fighting for their rights and what they believe in. Inclusivity, women’s equality, LGBTQ+ rights, and sustainability are only a few of the issues individuals and companies are taking a stand for. As some would say, these issues are only the tip of the iceberg – which, if we don’t make efforts towards sustainability, will melt and cause rising sea levels – bringing us to our first positive story of 2020.
As you may know, Dr. BRANDT skincare is headquartered in Miami, Florida, specifically in the lovely city of Coral Gables right down the street from Dr. Brandt’s original dermatology office. In the state of Florida, the Everglades is recognized as a treasured and one-of-a-kind network of natural resources that make up the largest wilderness east of the Mississippi River, and the largest subtropical wilderness in the US.
Back in January, Governor Ron DeSantis announced that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) reached an agreement that would allow for the purchase of 20,000 acres of Everglades Wetlands. You may be thinking, well why is this purchase important? Aside from being a monumental purchase (there hasn’t been a wetland sale this large in more than a decade), it will allow for restoration of the Everglades and protection against oil-drilling. Oil-drilling, if it was allowed, would damage the home of millions of wildlife that live within the Everglades.
Not only is this purchase an important milestone in Everglades protection, but it’s happening in our own backyard! The Dr. BRANDT skincare headquarters is less than an hour away from the boundary of the Everglades.The Everglades provides one-third of the drinking water in Florida and helps improve water quality by filtering out pollutants, replenishing aquifers, absorbing excess nutrients, and reducing flooding.
We take social responsibility seriously
This action helps the protection of wildlife in the Everglades, which is just as important as the wildlife in the oceans. Every year millions of wildlife are injured or killed due to plastic and pollution. Over the years, the beauty industry has banded together to take steps towards using ethically sourced ingredients, upgrading packaging to include less plastic, more biodegradable materials, and/or using up-cycling or recycling programs, like Terracycle.
As a brand, Dr. BRANDT has taken steps to increase our conscious and sustainable initiatives to save our wildlife, protect our planet, and make the world a better place. This year, we were labeled “Conscious Beauty at Ulta Beauty” because of our giving back through the Dr. Brandt Foundation and our increase in sustainable packaging initiatives. We made steps towards creating more sustainable packaging and currently, over 55% of our packaging is composed of recycled materials.
All in all, we do all of these things to protect our environment and make the world a better place for all of us to live in. Our environment gives so much to us and it’s crucial for us to take care of it – whether it’s our local water network or the world’s oceans. We appreciate how our local government has taken steps to protect our home state and we hope initiatives like this continue to emerge in Florida and other places across the world. Over the next year, we also look forward to seeing what other sustainable initiatives emerge in the beauty industry.
