Carbon Negative

Neighbourhood Botanicals Is One Of The Few 'Carbon Negative' Beauty Brands.
 We are offsetting More Than Double Our Emissions Through A Hydropower And Social Project In Rural China.

Climate change is the biggest issue affecting our planet right now, and will be for some time.
Companies cannot stand by any longer and take profits without contributing back. We at NB believe a global change towards conscious capitalism is well overdue.  

By becoming carbon negative / climate positive, we are going beyond 'climate-neutral' and showing other young companies they can do the same too.

We are a very small company, and we keep environmental and sustainability considerations in mind at every stage of our business practices, so we already started with a very low footprint.
In order to calculate and double offset our emissions, we partnered with third-party sustainability experts, Carbon Jacked, who did a full carbon footprint assessment.
We have made all the checks and balances and we are comfortably offsetting 2x the amount of carbon we emit to get your products made and shipped to you. 

How Did We Work This Out?

Many companies consider their carbon box ticked if they only offset emissions from their own business facilities and manufacturing processes.
We decided to go much further than this and account for as many of the emissions in our supply chain as we could, such as including our ingredients and packaging.

The nature of agriculture means our ingredients come from all over the world, so it felt insincere for us to ignore this.

Raw ingredients are shipped in bulk from the farmers and producers direct to our UK-based suppliers. Our suppliers then ship them to us.

Usually brands wouldn't make the effort or take responsibility for the full supply chain of their ingredients. But, we have calculated and added the emissions from the initial producers to our suppliers as well. 

By doubling our offset amount we have ensured that we are comfortably carbon negative. 

We have also included the embodied carbon* from the manufacture of our bottles and packaging, as well as our water, waste and business travel.

Our assessor's calculation method is based on the GHG Protocol, which is the international standard for carbon footprint reporting.

*Embodied carbon is the footprint of producing a material from 'cradle to grave'.  

How Is The Carbon Actually Offset?

Our assessors Carbon Jacked advised we supported a project that not only offset our emissions, but also contributes to a wide range of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

We chose to buy carbon credits in a clean energy project in rural China close to where our glass and recycled plastic bottles are made.

The Huoshui HydroPower Project involves multiple small-scale hydropower plants that generate renewable energy for rural Southwest and South Central China. By supplying clean hydroelectric power to the local grid, the project displaces greenhouse gas emissions, helping mitigate climate change and improving the lives of local people.

The project also provides:
• Local employment opportunities in power plant construction and operation, alleviating regional poverty.
• Funds for social initiatives in cooperation with local organisations, including disaster relief funds.
• Educational programmes aimed at improving the lives of China’s left-behind children, whose parents have migrated to the cities for work in factories leaving their children behind.
• Sustainable agricultural workshops to create increased income opportunities for local farmers.
• A safe and reliable electricity feed to give remote communities better access to electrical appliances to improve their daily life. 

 

This project would not be possible without the revenue generated by carbon credits.  

In other good news for 2021, we continue to support micro-finance loans for business owners in developing nations through Lend With Care, and our refill scheme is now running! See REFILLS for more info.