Sustainability ratings platform Good On You has ventured into the beauty industry with the launch of its Beauty Sustainability Scorecard.

Out of the 239 brands, two were awarded the highest rating possible of ‘Great’ while 19 received the second-highest rating of ‘Good’. Disruptor London and Odylique both secured a Great rating, scoring 5/5, with 87 and 86 out of 100 respectively, with Upcircle Beauty, Tropic, Pai Skincare, BYBI, Unbottled, Tata Harper, Neal’s Yard Remedies and The Perfect Anchor rounding off the 10 best rated small brands, all with Good scores (4/5).

Good On You says the new report offers the first brand rating system for beauty that assesses the key environmental, social, and animal welfare issues across the entire value chain.

“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,” comments co-founder Sandra Capponi. “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.”

“We believe in simplifying beauty and empowering consumers to make informed choices”

Commenting on his brand’s top score, Disruptor London co-founder, Sira Naidu, says: “When we started Disruptor London, our mission was clear: to bring transparency to the ingredients in our beauty products and challenge outdated practices, including those complicated multi-step routines. We believe in simplifying beauty and empowering consumers to make informed choices about what they use on their skin.

”We take pride in our sustainability achievements, as acknowledged by the comprehensive Good On You report. Their sustainability scorecards are based on brand’s disclosures and practices that impact: environment, labour and animal welfare. Thank you to Sophie Benson and Good On You or the in-depth interview and for championing transparency in the beauty industry.”

Each beauty brand is rated on hundreds of publicly available data points, including their disclosed policies and initiatives, quality certification schemes and independent reporting, which, says the platform, incentivizes brands to be more transparent — an area in which the beauty industry lags.

Issues highlighted in the Beauty Sustainability Scorecard include:

• a lack of ingredient transparency – while 90% of beauty brands use fragrance ingredients, 72% don’t disclose the exact ingredients they use
• living wage negligence– 84% of brands are taking no publicly disclosed action to ensure payment of living wages throughout their supply chains
• animal testing concerns– despite ‘cruelty-free’ being a popular term, 78% of brands have no certification around this
• insufficient climate reporting– 80% of large beauty brands don’t disclose their progress in meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets
• refillable packaging shortfall – while 15% of brands offer refillable products for overa third of their range, only 2% track and report on repeat purchases

The platform is shortly launching a sustainability tool called Good Measures to help brands understand and improve their rating.