Sustainability initiatives like post-consumer recycled plastic, refillable packaging, and 1% for the planet donations are table stakes for brands big and small. But a growing number of brands are tackling a far more ambitious goal by going to the source and conserving nature.

Major companies like Natura &Co., L’Oréal Groupe, and Clarins, alongside indie haircare brand Rahua, have either allocated funding to the protection and restoration of biodiversity or outright bought land to protect it from deforestation and other exploitation. These efforts go beyond the usual planting-a-tree-for-every-purchase type of campaign, and instead demonstrate an emerging era of beauty industry sustainability.

For example, Clarins publicly unveiled in 2019 Le Domaine Clarins, a 200,000-acre area that the brand purchased in the Alps for both conservation and the study of plants for use in its skincare and makeup products. Then, in 2020, Brazilian beauty corporation Natura &Co., which formerly owned The Body Shop and Aesop, announced its plan to preserve up to 7.4 million acres of Amazonian rainforest by 2030. That’s the equivalent of the size of Maryland. While the majority of companies and brands capable of conservation are large-scale with millions of dollars at their disposal, the inclusion of Rahua shows that indie brands can play a role, too.

“You can do both—you can [be in] the beauty [industry] and take care of nature at the same time,” said Anna Ayers, co-founder of Rahua alongside her husband Fabian Lliguin.

For Rahua, its approach is distinctly different from other companies because it was a mission that formed a brand, rather than a brand that formed a mission. Ayers and Lliguin formed the nonprofit Ecoagents in 2006, which works to protect the biodiversity, land, and wildlife of the Amazon. During one of the couple’s many trips to Peru, they met women of the Quechua and Shuar tribes. They saw their lustrous waist-length hair and learned that rahua oil was an essential ingredient in their haircare routines. Ayers describes that moment as key to Ecoagents' sustainability efforts by engaging the local tribes in commerce and fueling the projects that ultimately help conserve their homeland. Rahua (pronounced “ra-wa”) is an Incan word rooted in the phrase “for volcanic fire,” and it’s also the name of an Incan princess.

Today, Rahua reinvests 30% of its profits into conservation efforts, via Ecoagents. Overall, the bootstrapped brand earns an annual revenue in the “low eight figures,” said Farah Azmi, CEO of Rahua. Rahua is distributed globally across 300 retailers, including The Detox Market, Macy’s, and Harrods. Its conservation efforts are centered on helping indigenous tribes purchase their homeland from the government, thereby making their habitation legally defensible from others. The team declined to share exact investment figures, but said it is in the “millions.”

“In the simplest form, it is a mission-first brand, and that has completely shifted how we operate the business and how we think about the long-term planning of the business,” said Azmi. “I've been at many other brands before where profitability is important, but it's for the shareholders and investors. It's not necessarily for other communities.”

Since 2019, Rahua’s investments have focused on assisting indigenous Ecuadorian tribes in purchasing their homeland from the government. Overall, Rahua has conserved 1.6 million acres of the Amazon, mostly across Ecuador. The brand plans to conserve an additional 400,000 acres and expand its efforts to Peru and Bolivia by the end of 2025. The brand has also sponsored computer labs in Kapawai, Ecuador, for indigenous students and equipped them with more than 10,000 backpacks with school supplies.

“I didn't think it was possible for small brands to be able to get the work done and to be able to work directly in these communities,” said Azmi. “But whenever you are a brand that is mission-led and mission-driven, you will do whatever is in your capacity to do. And I think that's where Rahua has shown that it practices what it preaches.”

Approximately 1.5 million indigenous people live in the Amazon rainforest, with 385 indigenous groups occupying roughly 2.4 million square kilometers. A growing body of research indicates that these groups are defenders against deforestation, protecting some of the most carbon-rich parts of the Amazon.

"If [indigenous peoples] have traditional ways of living, and if they have a regular source of income that also allows them to keep their traditional ways of life, those areas can become sources of conservation,” said Aline Perez de Oliveira, Corporate Engagement Director of Latin America at nonprofit The Nature Conservancy.

Perez de Oliveira suggested that one motivation behind corporate conservation efforts relates to ambitious climate goals set forth by major companies. To achieve climate targets—many of which are set for 2030—companies have to put pressure further down the supply chain to find carbon reduction opportunities, and so they are looking at both a top-down and bottom-up approach.

That’s part of the approach for L’Oréal Groupe and its 10-year For the Future global corporate sustainability plans. Previously, its sustainability efforts were focused on internal operations, including manufacturing. For the Future not only adds to those areas but also brings in consumer awareness and a $50 million investment between 2020 and 2023 to restore biodiversity by working with impact investing fund Mirova to manage investment projects, such as restoring eroded coasts or peatlands in Southeast Asia. L’Oréal Groupe did not respond to a request for comment on whether it has made additional investments after 2023.

But its portfolio brands are at least continuing with their own conservation efforts. In 2017, YSL Beauty started its biodiversity restoration program in Morocco, and the goal is to restore 100,000 hectares—about 10 times the size of Paris—globally by 2030. To date, YSL Beauty’s Rewild Our Earth program has restored over 50,950 hectares of endangered ecosystems across eight projects in places like the Bahamas, Colombia, and Indonesia. In 2022, the brand partnered with the nonprofit Re:wild, a non-government organization that serves to protect and restore biodiversity and advance ecological restoration globally. Restoration projects are identified by Re:wild, according to Caroline Negre, Global Sustainability and Scientific Director at YSL Beauty.

“Due to climate change and extensive human overconsumption of nature, the wild is in decline,” she said in an email. “We know that our customers, especially the younger generations, are extremely attuned to the topic, and expect brands to take a stand and act.”

While the program falls under the L'Oréal For the Future initiative, Negre said the YSL Beauty team views their efforts as a separate entity that instead feeds into L’Oréal Groupe's wider sustainability objectives.

“We believe every act, big or small, can be impactful,” said Negre. “Whether it is changing consumer habits by educating our consumers about refills or partnering with NGO’s like Re:wild, we believe all actions add up in our quest towards a more sustainable future.”