Greenpeace ranks 30 cosmetics companies on microbead action

Greenpeace East Asia has released the results of a survey into the world’s 30 largest cosmetics and personal care companies analysing their commitment to the phase-out of microbeads.

In the Microbead Commitment Ranking survey, companies were ranked according to commitment and information transparency; definition; deadline; and application scope.

All companies took part in a Greenpeace survey and were scored out of 400 based on this and publicly available information.

Mixed bag

Topping the list in joint first place were Beiersdorf, Colgate-Palmolive, L Brands and Henkel. These four companies all scored 340/400 and, despite being at the top of the scoring board, their commitment was deemed to “fall short of an acceptable standard” for various reasons including their definition of microbeads being “too narrow or unclear”.

After the top four, came Clarins, Unilever Group, Botica Commercial Farmacêutica, Oriflame Cosmetics, Shiseido, Avon, Coty and Kao Corp. All of these companies scored 320/400.

At the bottom of the list in twelfth, thirteenth and lastly fourteenth places were: Amway, Revlon and Edgewell Person Care.

Edgewell, which is the maker of Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic, scored 0/400 because they did not respond to the survey and no publicly available information was available. Revlon, meanwhile, scored 80/400 with its commitment falling “far short” of an acceptable standard, according to Greenpeace.

Louise Edge, Senior Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “When it comes to dealing with microbeads, companies are all over the shop.

“These are the world’s biggest cosmetics and personal care companies, and not one of them has an acceptable plan to stop the use of microbeads. It’s clear there needs to be political action now to ban microbeads outright.”

Edge called on the UK’s newly-appointed Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom to ban microbeads. She said: “Banning microbeads would be a simple and effective way to hit the ground running.”

Microbead Commitment Ranking