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AS British retailer Lush expands globally – with a store opening at Bahrain’s Seef Mall in August and another planned for City Centre Bahrain by the end of the year - the head of ethical buying at the handmade cosmetics company says he is facing an almost impossible challenge - ensuring all products are free of slave labour and other human rights abuses.
Simon Constantine, the son of two of Lush’s founders, said sales doubling and an almost 50 per cent jump in profits to $40 million since 2013 created the potential for wider social impact by sourcing from more local communities.
But he said this growth had also opened a labyrinth of new problems for privately-owned Lush - which prides itself on products ethically-sourced, environmentally-friendly and not tested on animals - particularly as it expands in the Middle East and Asia.
Lush, famous for its Bath Bombs, used to add essential oils, scent and colour to bathwater, started recruiting for its Bahrain store in May with open days staged at Mercure Grand Seef Hotel as it set about looking for suitable sales associates and trainee managers to join the team.
It already has activated social media campaigns, highlighting products it believes will be popular in the kingdom. Asked by a follower about the opening date, the company replied: “With all the preparations being mostly ironed-out, inshallah within the next month. Much love Lushies!”
Haya Shanata, brand communications manager for Lush MENA based in Dubai, told GulfWeekly: “You’re correct - our opening has been delayed, but we are still gearing to open up very soon - the plan is around the end of August, but I don’t have a definite date.
“I’m hoping to have something set very soon and can let you and, of course, your readers and our lovely customers know.
“We’re all very excited to open in Seef Mall and in fact we just recently signed a second store location at City Centre Bahrain. By the end of the year, we will have two beautiful new shops in Bahrain. We can’t wait!
“Some of the exciting things we are looking to have in our stores is the concept inspired by Lush Oxford Street, our flagship store in London. You will notice the features of the store will be similar with reclaimed wood and other sustainable features in the shop, including water saving taps, low VOC paint, recycled tiles, etc.”
Founded on an ethos to do good while doing business and campaigning on social issues, Lush vowed in 2014 to stop using mica from India in cosmetics as child labour was found to be rife in the industry.
The company also refuses to use sandalwood from India for similar worker concerns, instead sourcing from Australia, and has drastically reduced its use of palm oil, concerned about deforestation, human rights abuses and slavery in that industry.
Simon, known by Lush’s staff as the ‘guerrilla perfumer’ for combining campaigns on issues like fox hunting with his role as the firm’s head perfumer, said expanding to around 930 stores in almost 50 countries had thrown up challenges and the best Lush could do was to be totally open about its efforts to be clean.
“From the supply chain point of view we have struggled to keep up,” Simon, 34, said at Lush’s quirky offices in the English south coast town of Poole, where upturned reclaimed wooden pallets serve as meeting rooms, in an interview with Belinda Goldsmith of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“With the amount of work you need to do to keep on top of things and everything changing so rapidly ... I would never be comfortable saying our supply chain is 100 per cent clean.”
Lush is one of a growing number of companies attracting consumers willing to pay a bit more for ethically-sourced products obtained in a sustainable way with workers treated fairly and environmental and social impacts considered.
Lush, set up in 1995, has benefited from this new consumer consciousness, with surging sales giving rise to factories in Britain, Germany, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Croatia.
Lush has also established itself in Asia where it has almost 250 stores. Constantine expects this growth to continue as Lush opens its first store in Thailand this year and seeks to re-enter India after an earlier attempt to work there failed.
But he admits that growth and the move to Asia brings more challenges for Lush’s efforts to monitor its supply chain.
The United Nation’s International Labour Organisation estimates about 21 million people are victims of forced labour with 56 per cent - or 11.7 million - in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Asia is a great region, we source a lot of our ingredients from there as well, but it changes so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up,” said Simon, who has a team of buyers to audit and monitor suppliers.
Working more outside Britain has also brought other challenges for Lush, which has backed causes from stopping badger culling and anti-fracking to supporting Guantanamo prisoners, through in-store campaigns and financial donations.
“We tend to be a bit of bold and stupid in Britain and that has stirred the pot sometimes, certainly around fox hunting with people … coming into stores and knocking things off shelves and threatening staff,” Simon said. “But globally sometimes we’ve veered away from particularly controversial campaigns ... where it may end up with people being arrested or put in jail. It is also about staff safety.”
Next he is looking for a sourcing project in Lebanon that could benefit Syrian refugees - similar to other projects in Africa and Asia intended to support local communities.
As to Lush’s recent growth, Simon puts it down to being in the right place at the right time. “It seems a lot of the beliefs that Lush has held for a long time have suddenly become much more mainstream and relevant. We’re at the right point to offer products that the ethics people are suddenly looking for,” he said.
