With the countdown to Christmas in full swing, Britons have been grappling with endless festive shopping lists amid a cost of living crisis. As people scope out meaningful presents on a tight budget, brands like The Body Shop are simplifying the search and providing gifts that give back.
In the UK, 34% of people are tightening their belts when it comes to spending on Christmas presents this year, meaning imaginations are being called upon to find affordable alternatives that spread goodwill during the festive season. With this in mind, over one in ten shoppers are prioritising sustainability and plan to wrap up zero-waste presents for their loved ones, while others are opting for gifts that give back – 34% are considering a charity donation in lieu of a package under the tree.
As people scramble to do their last-minute shopping, brands like The Body Shop are stepping up to make responsible gift-giving as uncomplicated and meaningful as possible. We caught up with Lily Cannon, a corporate communications manager at The Body Shop, to find out how the brand is foregrounding conscious gifts during the festive season and enabling shoppers to seamlessly support good causes year-round.
How is The Body Shop encouraging conscious gift-giving over the festive season?
Consumers are savvier than ever and are increasingly committed to making socially and environmentally conscious choices when it comes to where they spend their money. The Body Shop has always sought to be a leader in ethical beauty, and the Christmas season is no different.
Since last Christmas, we’ve saved 100 tonnes of material by switching from rigid card boxes to reusable paper vanity cases across our gifts. And much of the packaging we do use is produced by one of our Community Fair Trade (CFT) partners Get Paper Industry, which creates FSC-certified paper from eco-friendly raw materials such as cotton rags or banana tree stems.
During the festive season, each of our markets chooses a different local charity to partner with, and a donation is made to them from the sale of each Christmas gift. In the UK this year we are partnering with Children on the Edge who create safe spaces for refugee children. We’re hoping to raise £100,000 which will fund over 195,000 days of education for refugee children across Uganda, Bangladesh, and Lebanon.
How does your Community Fair Trade programme benefit partners?
Our CFT programme is our way of sourcing ethical, high-quality ingredients and materials from producers, farmers, and artisans around the world. It helps suppliers gain market access and invest in social and environmental projects that benefit their communities. Currently, we work with 19 suppliers in 15 countries, supporting the incomes of 13,500 people.
Our CFT partnership with Plastics for Change enables us to purchase recycled plastic from India, where almost 1/3 of waste goes uncollected. And this trade supports plastic ‘waste pickers’ with access to better working conditions at a fair price.
Another example is our shea butter, which has been sourced from Tungteiya Women’s Association in northern Ghana since 1994. Over 600 women from 11 villages handcraft the butter using traditional techniques, and our partnership gives them an independent income, as well as confidence and respect in their communities. The long-term investment in these communities has also helped them build seven schools that educate around 1,200 students every year and provide access to safe water and healthcare facilities for over 49,000 people.
How is The Body Shop reflecting these values internally?
Open Hiring is an innovative hiring scheme that The Body Shop first trialled in 2019. Essentially it means that if you’ve got the skills, you get the job, regardless of your background or experience. We first launched it in our US distribution centres and it has now been extended to the UK and Australia across our distribution centres, seasonal store roles, and now permanent store roles too. The scheme gives people who would usually face barriers to finding work (including young carers, people at risk of homelessness, people living below the poverty line, or people who have been previously incarcerated) a fair chance at accessing employment.
Beyond the charity donations from the sale of Christmas gifts, each member of staff is also given three days a year to support a cause that they care about through volunteering and/or supporting one of The Body Shop’s activism campaigns (e.g. our current global campaign Be Seen Be Heard which aims to increase the presence of youth voices in decision making spaces).
How will The Body Shop continue to build on its ethical and sustainable credentials through 2023?
The Body Shop was certified as a B Corp back in 2019, which means that we’re part of a global community of businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental impact. This certification helps to hold us accountable for not only maintaining these high standards but also implementing improvement plans to ensure recertification every three years. We’ve been working towards hopefully recertifying in 2023.
Our refill stations are a big part of improving our sustainable offerings for customers, and in 2023, we’re continuing our rollout of these in our stores around the world. By 2024 we hope to have a station in all of our stores globally, not just our busy flagship ones, as we want to make refilling an easy and convenient alternative to purchasing products in single-use packaging.
With a recession looming, the 2022 festive period has brought choppy financial waters for shoppers to navigate. The result has been a reduced budget for many on the hunt for meaningful gifts. However, in simplifying this process by spotlighting Community Fair Trade partners and charitable donations, The Body Shop is imbuing an added sense of meaning to its products and supporting consumers during the Christmas season and beyond.
The brand’s B Corp status, Open Hiring scheme, commitment to volunteering, and strong activism campaigns also demonstrate clear transparency and authenticity from within – aligning with the 42% of Britons who believe businesses should balance profit with social and environmental justice. As people increasingly come to expect real-world community action from the brands they shop with, The Body Shop is demonstrating how to charm conscious consumers by promoting change through direct activism and enabling seamless customer participation in charitable causes.
So, whether budgeters are on the hunt for the perfect Christmas gift, or looking for ways to shop more consciously throughout the year, balancing profit margins with purpose can be a way for brands to cut through the noise and offer a helping hand amid social and economic turmoil.
