Good On You Launches Into Beauty and Expands Industry Tools to Meet Growing Consumer Demand for Transparency
- Following popular demand, fashion’s trusted brand sustainability ratings platform Good On You launches into the beauty industry with the first methodology of its kind.
- The launch also sees Good On You scale up industry-focused solutions for retailers, tech platforms, and commercial real-estate landlords—offering a comprehensive suite of sustainability assessment tools to help them credibly engage consumers.
- To mark the release of the initial 200-plus ratings, Good On You has unveiled the Beauty Sustainability Scorecard, with insights on how the industry scores on timely sustainability issues.
9th October 2024 – Good On You today announced its launch into the beauty industry. Its rigorous new methodology is the first brand rating system for beauty that assesses the key environmental, social, and animal welfare issues across the entire value chain. The launch of the new beauty vertical builds on Good On You’s extensive experience as the most comprehensive and widely adopted brand sustainability rating system for fashion.
Sandra Capponi, co-founder of Good On You, comments: “From the start, Good On You’s big ambition has been to use people power to create a more sustainable future—in fashion and beyond. And for nearly a decade, we’ve supported millions of consumers looking for trustworthy sustainability information. As we launch into beauty and expand our tools to help the industry do better, we see there’s a clear opportunity for greater transparency across almost every major issue we’ve rated brands on.”
The initial 200-plus brand ratings are now available to consumers via the Good On You directory, and accessible to the retail industry through Good On You’s upgraded enterprise dashboard and API.
A methodology for brands’ entire value chains
The new beauty vertical builds on Good On You’s expertise and credibility in sustainability issues across brands’ supply chains. As in fashion, each beauty brand will be rated comprehensively on hundreds of publicly available data points, which include brands’ disclosed policies and initiatives, quality certification schemes, and independent reporting. This incentivizes brands to be more transparent—an area where the beauty industry lags.
The new beauty methodology was developed by Good On You’s in-house sustainability experts, who spent one year consulting widely with advocacy organisations, industry bodies, and sustainability teams at several leading brands to ensure the new methodology reflected industry consensus on best practices.
Beauty Sustainability Scorecard insights
To mark the launch, Good On You is also releasing the first-ever Beauty Sustainability Scorecard. The deep-dive data report spotlights issues across beauty’s value chain.
Key insights revealed in the report based on the first 239 brand ratings include:
- Lacking ingredient transparency: 90% of beauty brands use fragrance ingredients, but 72% do not disclose the exact ingredients they use, raising concerns about potential health and environmental impacts.
- Living wage negligence: 84% of brands are taking no publicly disclosed action to ensure payment of living wages throughout their supply chains, highlighting a significant human rights issue in the industry.
- Animal testing concerns: despite “cruelty-free” being a popular buzzword, 78% of brands have no certification to show they’re not testing on animals.
- Insufficient climate reporting: 80% of large beauty brands do not disclose their progress in meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets, mirroring a similar lack of transparency in the fashion industry.
- Refillable packaging shortfall: while 15% of brands offer refillable products for more than a third of their range, only 2% track and report on repeat purchases, raising questions about the real-world impact of these initiatives
Scaling B2B tools to drive the industry’s transformation
Initially well known for its consumer-facing channels, Good On You also expanded its offering to support the industry with robust sustainability assessments and data services. Its suite of B2B tools have enabled retailers such as FARFETCH, tech platforms including Klarna, and commercial real estate leaders like Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield (URW) to track their portfolio of brands and meet growing consumer demand for reliable information.
As part of the new launch, Good On You is scaling up its B2B tools with a full redesign of the Good On You Ratings Dashboard, providing enterprise partners with instant access to a credible assessment of their fashion and beauty portfolios. The beauty ratings are now available through the Ratings API, giving developers a flexible way to integrate into internal systems and create engaging consumer-facing experiences. Good Measures, a sustainability tool helping brands understand and improve their rating, will also soon be available to all rated beauty brands who wish to improve their transparency and performance on key issues.
Clément Jeannin, group director of sustainability at URW comments: “Good On You is the only rating platform of its kind that assesses brands across their entire value chain. The launch into beauty expands the coverage across our retail portfolio—providing valuable data to inform our business decisions, driving progress with tenants, and meeting the changing needs of consumers.”
Expanding to support consumer-powered change
The launch into beauty ratings, along with the expanded suite of sustainability tools, sees Good On You growing its market coverage to meet the increasing demand from its consumer user base, enterprise customers, and public supporters like Emma Watson. Ultimately the launch supports its big vision to arm consumers and industry leaders around the world with the information they need to make informed choices and help drive change across the retail industry.
The new beauty ratings and Beauty Sustainability Scorecard will be available at goodonyou.eco from 9th October 2024. Brands and retailers can contact Good On You to trial the upgraded Good On You Ratings Dashboard.
Notes to editor
Here’s a detailed guide to the Good On You brand rating system, including:
- Key issues covered in beauty;
- Data sources considered (including 40-plus beauty certifications and standards);
- Why Good On You only uses publicly available information;
- What Good On You’s five-point rating scale means.
About Good On You
Good On You is the most comprehensive and widely trusted brand ratings system for fashion—and now beauty. The biggest retail players, brands, and millions of consumers rely on Good On You’s transparent sustainability data and robust ratings to make better shopping choices and drive industry change. Since 2015, Good On You has built a database of more than 6,000 fashion brands, all assessed against its world-leading ratings system for their transparency on people, planet, and animal issues. Building on its expertise, Good On You launched its beauty ratings in October 2024, helping to further its mission to use the power of consumer choice to create a more sustainable future.
