10 tips on how to become more socially responsible in the natural ingredients for cosmetics sector

Global companies and European consumers are becoming increasingly aware of social standards along the supply chain for cosmetics products. Exporters of natural ingredients for cosmetics should, therefore, take social responsibility into account. This study presents options for steps you could take to increase social responsibility in your production practices and export business. It also shows how working to become more socially responsible could help improve your reputation and customer loyalty, as well as potentially increase opportunities for accessing the European market.

1. Learn about due diligence requirements and new EU laws on social responsibility

In Europe, compliance with sustainability standards used to be mostly voluntary but is now more often becoming mandatory. This trend is changing the way exporters of natural ingredients for cosmetics have to operate if they want to access and keep clients in the European market.

One of the most important sets of rules is the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). This already applies to large companies and will also apply to SMEs by 2026. It requires companies to identify, prevent, reduce and account for negative impacts on human rights (for example, child labour, worker exploitation) and the environment (for example, biodiversity loss, water contamination) across their value chains.

Meanwhile, the OECD-FAO Guidance for Responsible Agricultural Supply Chains has become the international standard for risk-based due diligence tailored to agriculture, including wild-harvested and cultivated cosmetic ingredients. These guidelines talk about the need to:

• work on social responsibility in contracts with producers;
• ensure fair working conditions and land-use rights;
• regularly look at risks and act upon them; and,
• work together with stakeholders at all levels of the supply chain.

An example: Symrise – a major German fragrance and cosmetic ingredients manufacturer with strong sustainability ratings – has integrated the OECD-FAO guidance into its strategy and sourcing systems for vanilla in Madagascar and for shea butter in West Africa. It does this using participatory risk assessments, by documenting land-use tenure and by training collectors in fair pricing principles.

European importers are more often demanding that their suppliers do self-assessments, undergo third-party audits or prove that they comply with internationally recognised standards like the ILO Core Conventions and/or the OECD-FAO guidance. These assessments usually are about working conditions, payment systems, traceability and stakeholder engagement.

Tips to strengthen your position as a supplier:

• Read the report on Good Sustainability Practices for the Cosmetics Industry, which highlights the environmental and social aspects of sustainability.
• Do a gap analysis based on the OECD-FAO steps.
• Compare your practices against tools and case studies information like SEDEX or amfori BSCI.
• Make sure you have full documentation of contracts, payments, health and safety measures and grievance mechanisms.

Figure 1 below shows the most important aspects of social responsibility that are expected at different points in the cosmetics supply chain. Making these part of your company identity will increase your chances of building long-term, values-driven partnerships with European buyers.

Figure 1: ISO 26000 international guidance standard on social responsibility

Source: International Institute for Environment and Development

As a starting point, think about a self-assessment based on the ILO standards and the OECD-FAO due diligence checklist. This will help you to identify weaknesses, reduce risks and show your strengths in social sustainability for marketing purposes.

2. Build your ESG strategy and define what makes your company unique

Global markets, especially in Europe, are now moving beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) towards a more structured environmental, social and governance (ESG) approach. ESG offers a more transparent, measurable and investor-oriented framework to show your company’s sustainability performance.

A strong ESG strategy can help your business to comply with EU due diligence laws, respond to buyer expectations and get access to green finance. It also helps you to communicate a credible, evidence-based impact story. This will help you to stand out from competitors in the natural ingredients for cosmetics sector.

In the cosmetics industry, ESG is increasingly being used not just as a compliance tool, but also to build brand reputation, consumer trust and market resilience. Leading brands are linking their ingredient sourcing with ESG standards for biodiversity, worker well-being, transparency and product safety.

Key components of an ESG strategy:

1. Do a baseline assessment using ESG-relevant data. Analyse environmental risks (for example, water use, biodiversity), social risks (for example, wages, inclusion) and governance practices (for example, codes of conduct, anti-corruption policies). Use supplier assessments, field surveys and stakeholder interviews.
2. Define your key ESG topics. Ask your clients what matters most to them (for example, women’s empowerment, land tenure security, traceability).
3. Set clear, well-defined ESG goals and key performance Indicators (KPIs). For example, "100% traceability of wild ingredients by 2027" or "50% of sourcing from certified women-led groups".
4. Keep an eye on progress, adapt your actions and publish your results through ESG dashboards, digital storytelling or annual impact updates.

A powerful ESG story can turn your business into a trusted brand. Combine a story and numbers: explain the issue you are dealing with, what actions you have taken and what impact you have achieved. Use photos, testimonials, traceability data and maps.

For example, OKA Cosmetics in Burkina Faso documents its partnerships with shea butter co-operatives through video interviews with women producers. They show improvements in their income and education. These stories are published on LinkedIn and included in the company’s ESG brochure.

You could even print QR codes on your packaging that link to short ESG impact clips or infographics.

Social impact tips:

• Map your social impact priorities. Start with three areas in which your business can make a difference. Common priorities include fair wages, gender inclusion and youth engagement, but you can also contribute towards responsible consumption by reducing waste, making sure the work is safe, promoting good terms of employment and building strong partnerships through inclusive value chains.
• Use local voices. Collect testimonials from producers, especially women and indigenous workers, to document social progress. This adds authenticity to your ESG storytelling.
• Work with communities. Get producer groups involved when you define social goals. Shared ownership leads to more sustainable results (for example, joint price-setting or land-rights agreements). One example of this is Arbor Oils of Africa, a Kenyan exporter of frankincense and myrrh. They are working closely with indigenous and pastoralist communities in northern Kenya to develop sustainable harvesting plans and safeguard local dryland forests together. This approach includes:
  • community consultations to set harvesting schedules that protect tree regeneration cycles;
  • joint agreements on harvesting quotas and revenue sharing;
  • support for women-led harvesting groups, who now play an active role in decision-making about land use; and,
  • combining traditional ecological knowledge with modern business practices.
• Track social KPIs. Keep an eye on indicators such as the number of women trained or contracts signed, or how working conditions have improved. Clients are asking for this kind of data more often.
• Tell your social story in EU markets. Show how your product promotes resilience, dignity, education and so on. Use this to stand out from the competition in pitches or at trade shows.

3. Make sure that your producers and/or workers are being paid fairly 

In recent years, the discussion around fair pay in Europe has moved towards living wages and a living income. This means the minimum income a person needs to have a decent standard of living. It is quite possible that the legal minimum wage in your country is not enough to provide that. This means that as a socially responsible employer, you should make sure that you are paying your workers a living wage.

It is also important to pay fair prices for the products you buy. You should record all transactions and the prices paid, because your European clients may ask for this information. It is advisable to sign contracts with producers or producers’ organisations. The table below shows how you could improve payment agreements.

Table 1: How to improve payment conditions upstream in the supply chain

Source: ProFound and Christine Woda, 2023

The above changes have the potential to increase producers’ commitment to your business, and so improve the quality of the natural ingredients you export. They may also increase your producers’ resilience to climate change.

The Pelere Group in Uganda is an example of a company working closely with both its producer group and European clients. It does this to make sure that farmers are paid a premium price for the shea nuts they harvest. If new clients are not willing to pay a premium for that product, the Pelere Group will not sell to them. Thanks to this method, only those clients who are most concerned about social responsibility become partners of the Pelere Group. A relationship of this kind will probably last longer, because all the stakeholders involved (producer, exporter and importer) share the same goals.

4. Get to know your product and the producers you work with

Becoming involved in social responsibility entails going to the very beginning of your supply chain. Many social issues take place beyond your direct activities. This makes it very important to invest time in gaining a good understanding of your entire supply chain. To start, find out exactly where your raw material comes from and who is involved in the production, further processing, selling and transport. Identify and talk to the people involved in production and supply activities. You should also ensure that the people with whom you work have sustainable practices in place.

The next step could be to visit the producers in order to gain insight into their living conditions. Have them show you how the production process works, who is involved and which equipment they use in production and harvesting. You could also ask producers to complete a self-assessment form to measure farm sustainability, as well as a questionnaire to assess their social performance. The information you gather about the production site and relevant stakeholders can provide critical input for analysing the strengths of your business, as well as areas that are in need of further development.

To improve your understanding of the roles and relationships existing between the stakeholders in your supply chain, you could conduct a simple stakeholder mapping. This could help you identify all the people involved in your business and their relationships with one another. This includes all your producers, as well as the communities in which they live and the people leading these communities. Figure 2 below provides an idea of how to map the stakeholders and identify which of them are likely to be more important for your business operations. Remember to keep it simple. Having a better idea of the stakeholders could help you identify problem areas and work to solve them.

Figure 2: Example of stakeholder mapping and actions to take

Source: ProFound, 2023

5. Check options to diversify your producers’ sources of income

Another way to exhibit your commitment to social responsibility could be to support the economic empowerment of your producers. You could develop training programmes to address production issues, improve good agricultural practices or enhance productivity. In addition, you could explore options for helping your producers diversify sources of income through crop diversification and changing the crops that are grown each year. It might be interesting for them to build and diversify their portfolio of ingredients.

Figure 3: Statistical analysis of the benefits of growing different types of crops

Source: Cirad France

In the same way, you could also offer to help your producers to formalise their organisations. This would enable producers to access support programmes operated by non-governmental or public organisations for improving their entrepreneurship or production techniques.

Consider encouraging your suppliers to diversify their markets in order to reduce their dependency on you. You should obviously not do this until after you have documented your own personal purchasing volumes and agreements in plurennial contracts. Although it may seem risky, building relationships with your producers can offer a variety of benefits. This is because producers who are more economically resilient are more likely to produce high-quality raw materials for your export business.

Many European importers are currently implementing their own education and training programmes by working directly in communities. For example, Gustav Heess, a large importer of natural ingredients for the food and cosmetics industry, has conducted a number of social projects, including building schools and wells and improving health services for their producer communities. These projects are intended to demonstrate to consumers that they are committed to social responsibility as well as to the producers with whom they operate.

6. Treat everyone fairly and equally

Fair and equal treatment is a human right. You should not treat people differently based on gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Treating all your employees fairly and with respect is likely to build trust, strengthen loyalty and maximise efficiency throughout your company.

Women play a particularly important role in the production and harvesting of natural ingredients for cosmetics. In many cases, however, there are significant differences in the power, income and involvement of women and men, as well as in the terms and conditions under which they work. To resolve such imbalances, it is advisable to go into the communities in order to develop a better understanding of the power dynamics and to investigate the possibility of constructive dialogue concerning the empowerment of women and people of lower status. For more ideas on how to strengthen your approach to gender-related workplace issues, consult the ILO document on Gender Diversity Journey.

Tips to deal with discrimination in and around your business:

1. Spot possible sources of discrimination and inequality in your supply chain.
2. Take a look at your current policies and practices to fight discrimination, including supplier selection and pay.
3. Develop a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policy that describes how you plan to deal with discrimination and inequality in all aspects of your business.
4. Make sure that your employees are aware of and trained in the DEI policy, and make sure that it is applied consistently.
5. Create reporting mechanisms to track progress towards your DEI goals and analyse this data regularly to identify areas for improvement.
6. Build partnerships with local suppliers to make sure that their needs and perspectives are taken into account in all your agreements.
7. Run regular surveys and focus groups with employees to collect feedback on your DEI activities and their effectiveness.
8. Set up a safe, inclusive workplace culture in which all employees feel valued and supported.
9. Make sure that your marketing and branding activities are inclusive and representative of diverse cultures and backgrounds.
10. Continuously review and update your DEI policy to make sure that it stays relevant and effective.

In your efforts to treat everyone fairly and equally, it is important to understand the difference between equality and equity. Equality refers to treating everyone the same way regardless of their needs or circumstances. In contrast, equity concerns fairness. People have different needs, and you should be flexible in offering people what they need in order to perform their jobs equally. It entails levelling the playing field by providing additional support to people who may need it more than others. A visual representation is presented in Figure 3.

Figure 4: The difference between equality and equity

Source: DiversityResources

7. Make sure your employees are healthy and safe

Ensure that the working conditions of your employees are safe and decent. This entails preventing incidents in the workplace and providing sanitary facilities, work equipment and first aid kits. Ensuring that producers are safe and respected also creates a positive working environment that fosters productivity and motivation amongst your producers.

Guaranteeing safe working conditions can be especially challenging in the sourcing of natural ingredients for cosmetics, as they are often wild-harvested in remote and inaccessible areas. The best way to clarify the potential health and safety hazards is to meet with the producers and jointly identify areas that may require intervention.

In this process, the Vietnamese Duc Phu Agriculture Forestry Joint Stock Company developed their own specialised tree-climbing equipment that makes it easier and safer for the harvesters to climb the trees to collect gum. They also facilitate the safety of their producers by providing additional personal security equipment, including climbing belts, goggles and helmets, as well as training. These accident-prevention measures have increased motivation amongst the harvesters, especially on the part of younger people.

The following are several examples of steps that you could take to improve health and safety conditions:

1. Ensure a clean, safe workplace. Have preventative measures in place to avoid injuries and illness. To this end, you could provide employees with protective gear, including helmets, gloves, goggles and masks. You could also arrange regular medical checkups for your employees.
2. Have first aid kits available and provide for emergency transportation. Make first aid kits available, and make sure that they are complete and that no items have expired. If possible, have a vehicle available to transport employees to medical facilities in emergencies. You could also establish various medical-care points in communities close to where you operate in order to provide emergency medical attention to your employees when there is no hospital in the vicinity. To prevent the same accident from recurring, keep track of all health-related incidents and take measures to correct them.
3. Provide a decent recreation area.Inspect the resting facilities. They should provide protection from rainfall, sunlight, cold and heat, as well as basic sanitary facilities for hygiene, including toilets and washing stations. Moreover, ensure that there is access to clean drinking water.
4. Ensure access to improved working tools and share knowledge on best practices. Natural ingredients for cosmetics are produced under conditions that can be quite archaic. This may involve climbing trees or entering deep vegetation where dangerous animals live. Consider providing climbing equipment for your producers or snake serum for emergency purposes. Examine the challenges and discuss areas for improvement with your client. 

8. Secure land-use rights for long-term and sustainable production

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has focused attention on the legality and traceability of land use. Although the regulation currently applies only to seven specific commodities – cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood – the list will probably expand in the coming years. This could affect more of the non-timber forest products used in cosmetics.

If you export natural ingredients, we strongly recommend that you prepare for your products to be included in the EUDR. This means bringing your sourcing practices into line with its most important principles: legality, traceability and deforestation-free production.

Natural cosmetics ingredients are often wild harvested in public forests or from community land. Although harvesters may have traditional collection rights, these are often not written down or clear to all interested parties. This puts producers at risk of losing access to the land at any time.

Follow these steps to secure land-use rights and to prepare for stricter traceability requirements:

1. Map and geolocate the production area using GPS tools or mobile apps. Although the EUDR currently requires this only for the seven commodities listed above, buyers in many sectors are now demanding traceability.
2. Ask producers if they have legal documentation or if they are officially recognised as the landowners. If they do/are, check that this is in line with national land classifications.
3. If the rights are informal, work with local authorities or NGOs to start a recognition process or community protocol with support at the local level.
4. If you are sourcing from indigenous or local communities, always apply free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). EU buyers and international certification bodies require this more often these days.
5. Include all land-use documentation and risk assessments in your traceability system, even if they are not yet required for your product.
6. Check the steps and protocols developed by FairWild.

Although the EUDR does not yet cover natural ingredients like frankincense or shea, it will probably be expanded in the future. Because of this, many European buyers are already applying its requirements to other products voluntarily.

This process should be part of your traceability system. For further insight into how this works, see the CBI’s Tips to go green.

Note that collection rights may be limited to extraction only, and activities aimed at promoting the sustainable cultivation of particular species may not be allowed. This could have a major impact on the long-term sustainability, production and income of the producers. It could also contribute to the degradation of the ecosystem, as the land has no designated owner and is thus unlikely to be protected or used sustainably. 

The following example illustrates the importance of securing land-use rights and the ways in which European clients could play a role in the process.

The French flavour and fragrance manufacturer MANE purchases styrax gum from the indigenous Pech people of Honduras. The gum is harvested wild in a large natural forest. At one time, the government had plans to declare this area a national park in order to improve its conservation status. These plans failed to consider the traditional Pech activity of styrax gum production, as no land-use rights were documented. This activity would not be allowed in a national park. With support from MANE and other companies in the perfumery sector, the location of the Pech production area was documented and shared with the forest authorities. A process of ‘free, prior and informed consultation’ was carried out, in which the Pech people were asked about the proposed declaration of the land as a protected area. A compromise was ultimately reached. Instead of a national park, the area was designated as an ‘Anthropological and Forest Reserve’. This dynamic designation allowed for the combination of forest conservation and the preservation of the traditional production of styrax gum. The Pech people now have a formal assignment for the forest that ensures sustainable land use and long-term conservation.

9. Leverage digital tools and AI to monitor and boost social impact

Today, exporters of natural ingredients for cosmetics can tap into new digital tools and artificial intelligence (AI) to track and improve their social performance in real time. These technologies offer scalable, cost-effective solutions for monitoring working conditions, income fairness, and supply chain risks—especially important for companies working with smallholder producers or informal collectors.

Mobile apps now allow SMEs to collect anonymous feedback from workers, assess payment equity, and even detect patterns of social risk using predictive analytics. For example, AI can analyse data on seasonal income volatility or community health to recommend early interventions.

One example is Akoma Cooperative Multipurpose Society, a Ghanaian exporter of unrefined shea butter and black soap. Partnering with the tech platform BanQu, Akoma uses blockchain-based digital identities to document each woman’s contribution, track transactions, and ensure transparency in pricing and payment. Women receive SMS confirmations of their sales and can build digital profiles—often for the first time—which helps them access microfinance and formalise their work. The data also feeds into dashboards that Akoma uses to report social impact metrics to European clients.

This kind of system enables Akoma to:

• Monitor fair trade practices and correct payment delays;
• Provide documentation for ethical sourcing audits; and,
• Offer their buyers real-time data aligned with EU due diligence frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

Adopting such systems doesn’t have to be expensive. Several platforms offer light-touch mobile or SMS-based tools designed for rural or low-tech contexts. By collaborating with local NGOs or tech startups, even small suppliers can implement traceable, inclusive and auditable processes.

Tips for getting started with digital social impact monitoring:

• Explore platforms like BanQu, TrueFootprint, or Ulula that focus on worker voice, payment tracking and supply chain mapping.
• Use mobile surveys to gather anonymous social feedback from harvesters, especially women and youth.
• Build internal capacity or partner with tech-savvy cooperatives to pilot one region or product line first.
• Involve buyers early as they may co-invest in scalable tools or support onboarding costs.
• Share social performance insights with your European partners as part of your impact storytelling and ESG reports.

10. Read our other studies for further information on entering export markets

CBI has published a range of studies put together by industry experts containing further tips for becoming a successful exporter of natural ingredients for cosmetics to Europe. These tips provide insights on how to find buyers, how to make the digital transition and how to organise your exports. There are also further studies on specific natural ingredients for cosmetics products, including essential oils, shea butter, fruit seed oils and alternatives to palm oil. These studies should be used in combination with the other tips to provide your clients with a holistic service that increases your chances of finding buyers in international markets. 

ProFound – Advisers In Development carried out this study on behalf of CBI.

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