Conventional wisdom holds that seeing "natural" and “organic" on product labels somehow means the companies selling those goods are using better, safer ingredients. However, these words often offer a false promise to consumers and the planet.
For instance, "natural," which is a relatively broad word, has no concrete, recognized definition in the industry, and it isn’t currently regulated. The federal agencies that oversee the sale and advertising of cosmetics, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), still have not formally defined this term as it applies to cosmetic products.
Despite this, cosmetic makers often tout natural ingredients, implying that they are less polluting and therefore better for the environment. On the contrary, the “natural" ingredients in personal and skin care products often contribute to pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change.
Take palm oil, for example. This widely used vegetable oil is present in more than half of all packaged products sold in the United States and 70 percent of cosmetics, including shampoo and conditioner, makeup, skin care products, toothpaste, and sunscreen. Companies use palm oil in these products for its many desirable properties, including vitamin E content, texture-boosting fatty acids, and natural alcohols.
But there's a dark side to this ingredient. Corporate demand for palm oil drives deforestation and destroys wildlife habitat in rainforests and other parts of the tropics. Deforestation, sometimes by means of polluting forest fires, also releases the carbon trees sequester, worsening climate change. Indonesia, the leading producer of palm oil, is now the world's eighth-largest greenhouse gas emitter.
A 2018 Greenpeace study found that top palm oil supply companies had cleared 500 square miles of Southeast Asian rainforest between 2015 and 2018 alone. Further, oil palm plantations are often located on peatlands, which store more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem on Earth. To make room for palm oil operations, these peatlands are dug up, drained, and burned, which alone releases more than 2 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. Further, the farming practices associated with the crop are notorious for their considerable carbon footprints and sometimes exploit child labor.
In addition to the ingredients themselves, the packaging used in cosmetics may also be an issue. About 70 percent of the beauty industry’s waste comes from packaging. According to reports from Zero Waste, beauty packaging amounts to 120 billion units every year. That includes plastic, paper, glass, and metals, all of which end up in landfills and incinerators. In addition, most plastics used in packaging are made from fossil fuels, the extraction of which often releases methane into the atmosphere, and the plastics industry itself is a significant climate polluter, causing the climate impact to be even more of an issue.
The cosmetic and beauty industry's climate and pollution problems are not intractable, and solutions are available. The industry must hold itself to higher standards to protect consumers and the environment, and governments must regulate cosmetic and personal care products in a comprehensive, meaningful way. In the meantime, customers should be aware that product labels can be misleading and educate themselves on potential dangers, both to the environment and themselves.
The health — and beauty — of our planet is at stake. And as human-induced climate change continues causing significant weather extremes and impacting billions of people in every region across the globe, it is important for industries and regulatory agencies to seek and implement solutions and make changes to the way chemicals and product ingredients are sourced, produced, and used.
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Marcha Chaudry | May 24, 2022
Conventional wisdom holds that seeing "natural" and “organic" on product labels somehow means the companies selling those goods are using better, safer ingredients. However, these words often offer a false promise to consumers and the planet.
William Funk | May 24, 2022
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Jarkesy v. Securities and Exchange Comm'n is a potential blockbuster. In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held that George Jarkesy had engaged in misrepresentation in certain public statements, thereby committing securities fraud. The SEC ordered Jarkesy to cease and desist and to pay a civil penalty. In addition, the agency barred him from certain securities industry activities.
Alex Kupyna | May 23, 2022
While the Center for Progressive Reform staff advocate for stronger protections from toxic chemical spills, none of our experts assumed that one of our own would gain firsthand experience on the matter.
Jake Moore | May 19, 2022
In 2001, an explosion at the Motiva Enterprises Delaware City Refinery caused a 1 million gallon sulfuric acid spill, killing one worker and severely injuring eight others. In 2008, an aboveground storage tank containing 2 million gallons of liquid fertilizer collapsed at the Allied Terminals facility in Chesapeake, Virginia, critically injuring two workers exposed to hazardous vapors. In 2021, the release of over 100,000 gallons of chemicals at a Texas plant killed two contractors and hospitalized 30 others. In addition to injury and death, workplace chemical spills and exposures contribute to an estimated 50,000 work-related diseases such as asthma and chronic lung disease each year, as well as nearly 200,000 hospitalizations. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created to reduce risks and hazards to workers, and to prevent incidents like these. However, following through on this promise has been another matter.
Daniel Farber | May 4, 2022
Soon after Trump took office, Republicans used the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to overturn sixteen Obama-era regulations. If they win control of the government in 2024, they'll undoubtedly do the same thing to Biden regulations. It behooves us, then, to understand the effect of these legislative interventions. A Ninth Circuit ruling last week in a case involving bear baiting, Safari Club v. Haaland sheds new light on this murky subject.
Daniel Farber | May 2, 2022
Court watchers and environmentalists are waiting with bated breath for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on West Virginia v. EPA, the Court's most important climate change case in a generation. The issue in that case is what, if anything, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can do to regulate carbon emissions from power plants and factories. Last week, conservative states asked the Court to intervene in another climate change case. How the Court responds could give us hints into just how far the activist conservative majority is likely to go in the West Virginia case.
James Goodwin | April 27, 2022
Few policy questions have a more profound impact on our day-to-lives than how we produce, transport, and use energy. Whether it's a fight against the siting of a polluting natural gas facility in a historically Black community, the catastrophic failure of an electric grid following a winter storm, foreign wars causing price shocks that further hollow out the fixed incomes of America's older adults, or an abiding concern over leaving our grandchildren a habitable climate — all these issues and more make energy policy a central concern for the public. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — which oversees much of the country's energy infrastructure and helps set rules, rates, and standards for energy markets — is undertaking new efforts to level the playing field. A new Center for Progressive Reform report examines one of these efforts: the establishment of the Office of Public Participation (OPP). After decades of delay, FERC finally began setting up the office this past year.
Marcha Chaudry | April 26, 2022
Earlier this month, HBO Max aired an important series about toxic ingredients in cosmetic products. The series also examined the professional beauty industry and the health effects to workers exposed to toxic ingredients. Toxic ingredients are found in cosmetics and other personal care products. The toxic chemicals used in them have been linked to a wide range of health problems, including ovarian cancer, breast cancer, early-onset puberty, fibroids and endometriosis, miscarriage, poor maternal and infant health outcomes, diabetes and obesity, and more. As I noted in Not So Pretty, "There is a loophole in federal regulation that allows industry to use almost any ingredient and label it as 'fragrance.'"
Daniel Farber | April 25, 2022
Last week, the White House undid an effort by the Trump administration to undermine the use of environmental impact statements. The prior rules had been in effect since 1978. Restoring the 1978 version was the right thing to do. The Trump rules arbitrarily limited the scope of the environmental effects that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can consider under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Their goal was clearly to prevent consideration of climate change.