Pioneering Product Impact Footprinting in Consumer Health & Beauty with Redcare Pharmacy
Launching Redcare Pharmacy’s Climate Impact Reduction with Product Carbon Footprinting
Due to such variety in the products produced, in the Consumer Health & Beauty sectors, the impact of various life cycle stages can vary greatly. At the same time, consumers are demanding greater transparency with the products they’re buying, with 41% of consumers feeling guilty about the environmental impact of beauty and grooming products alone (British Beauty Council).
Redcare Pharmacy, previously Shop Apotheke Europe, partnered with Vaayu in 2023 to bring accurate product impact accounting to the Health and Beauty industry.
Product Impact and its Calculation Varies Significantly in the Consumer Health & Beauty Sectors
The measurement of environmental impacts in the Health and Beauty sectors is often less precise and less frequent compared to other retail verticals. This is mainly due to the significant variation in impacts among different products within these sectors. Product manufacturing, for example, can account for merely 1% of the product carbon footprint of a cream, whereas for some health foods, it can make up almost 50% (proprietary data by Vaayu).
Redcare Pharmacy wanted to tackle this problem head-on, so they partnered with Vaayu to become one of the first leaders in the industry to bring accurate, scalable footprinting and more transparency to their products.
Building a Dedicated Health & Beauty LCA Database to Calculate Emissions
Vaayu provided granular product carbon footprint data in the new Consumer Health & Beauty verticals by expanding its technology and database to calculate climate impact. By harnessing the power of our in-house LCA expertise, combined with proprietary AI and machine learning (ML) technology, Vaayu was able to compute the impact of selected Redcare Pharmacy’s own-brands such as Nu3, Beavita, Skintist and Redcare. In the scope of work, Vaayu calculated the impact of 1,050 products, from 194 suppliers, across 15 categories.
Redcare Pharmacy’s product carbon emissions were calculated using Vaayu’s proprietary impact database of more than 600,000 data points and automated, machine-learning impact modeling engine, Kria. The team performed a full Cradle-to-Grave analysis for all the products, including product use and end-of-life, which can be responsible for a significant portion of the emissions. Vaayu also leveraged Kria's AI and ML to perform accurate data mapping and fill in data gaps with context-specific data points.
A thorough uncertainty analysis was also performed at each step of the calculation to provide a Vaayu Accuracy Score, ensuring transparency and making space for action, for example, on how the accuracy and assessment can be further improved with better data.
The First Comprehensive Product Emissions Calculated in the Health & Beauty Retail Verticals
Vaayu provided accurate insights for selected Redcare Pharmacy products in 2023, across everything from tablets and creams to health foods. Vaayu’s data is being used by the company to help make more informed commercial decisions with the climate in mind — further engaging its suppliers on its mission toward Scope 3 reductions and Net Zero as part of its decarbonization journey.
With Redcare Pharmacy’s goal to demystify the varying impact of their products, this data was a crucial first step for them to understand these nuances and make improvements in the future.
Covering the full product life cycle and supply chain and providing Vaayu’s insightful Accuracy Scores
Identified emissions hotspots across product categories and forms, enabling the engagement of 194 suppliers as part of Scope 3 emissions reductions
Insight into Redcare Pharmacy’s Upstream and Downstream Scope 3 activities emissions hotspots for more effective portfolio management
Vaayu is proud to help shed light on these complex nuances within Consumer Health & Beauty — sectors where sustainability and supply chain transparency are becoming non-negotiable. Our mission remains clear: partnering with forward-thinking brands to lower the retail industry’s environmental impact at scale.