Gisou Sustainability Update & Promise 2021
On Earth Day 2019, we started a tradition with our first Gisou Sustainability Promise - a promise to work on becoming a more sustainable and transparent company. With various goals in mind, we set out to work towards a cleaner & greener Gisou, promising to stay accountable and to never stop improving. On Earth Day 2020, we renewed our commitment with an updated Sustainability Promise.
Today, on Earth Day, we are taking a look back at some of the improvements we have made in the past year and looking ahead at those to be made in 2021.
RECAP & LOOK AHEAD
1. IMPROVE OUR BEE-CENTERED APPROACH IN THE MIRSALEHI BEE GARDEN
We always prioritise bee welfare and let the bees guide our beekeeping practices to derive Mirsalehi Honey and Mirsalehi Propolis, our key ingredients, in a bee friendly and sustainable manner.
For instance, as we are growing, we will be expanding not only our Gisou team but also the number of bee colonies.
In 2021, we will expand the Mirsalehi Bee Garden with a second location, under the supervision of Negin's Dad.
2. RAISE AWARENESS FOR THE IMPORTANCE OF HONEY BEES
In addition to taking care of the Mirsalehi Honey Bees, our mission is to raise awareness for the importance of all bees to our ecosystem.
To raise awareness for the bees last year, we shared weekly posts and a series of BeePeeking episodes via @gisou which reached nearly 2.7M.
Since honey bees rely on flowers for nectar - their main source of food, we included sachets of Honey Bee Wildflower Seeds with each order placed during Spring/Summer. These were created so that you could support the honey bee life cycle by sowing wildflowers and sharing this with the rest of the community. For bee season this year, we have exciting plans to get you even more involved in supporting the bees.
Although we continue to support our beekeepers in Paris and NYC, we weren't able to expand our Gisou Bees Project (a special initiative in support of urban beekeeping practices) due to COVID-19 last year. We hope to make up for it by installing more hives in select cities within our global community!
Next to the importance of honey bees, beekeepers are crucial for maintaining bee colony health. Going forward, we want to encourage more young people to explore what beekeeping is all about. We will be offering fun, interactive sources of information and initiatives with you very soon. Stay tuned!
3. INCREASE PRODUCTION TRANSPARENCY
All of our packaging now includes a call to action to recycle. We’ll be sharing instructions on how to separate & recycle our products soon.
Continuing on this transparent note, we’re proud to share that our main manufacturing site is carbon neutral, fully powered by solar energy and actively works to reduce trash and water wastage.
4. GREEN OUR PRODUCT FORMULATIONS
Without compromising on function and quality, we continually strive to make our formulations greener.
After working with external experts, we’re proud to share that a formulation expert has joined our in-house Product Development team. With her ingredients expertise and knowledge of the natural world, she'll be optimising our current and future healthy hair formulations.
5. IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF OUR PACKAGING
Work with more recycled, recyclable and biodegradable packaging materials.
Sustainable packaging highlight:
After 2 years in the making, we are proud to have launched our limited edition Curling Tool fitted in a 100% sustainable tool case. Made entirely of paper pulp, this custom-made case is fully recycled and recyclable.
Additional packaging updates you may have noticed:
We’ve switched over to FSC-certified paper (paper from sustainably managed forests), and downsized the packaging of our Honey Infused Hair Oil & Perfume to save on materials and make shipping more sustainable.
We also close all of our shipments with paper-based tape and our EU shipments no longer include packing slips. In addition, all of our product samples are packaged in fully biodegradable sachets.
We’ll continue to make sustainable packaging a top priority as we source new innovations.
A MORE SUSTAINABLE GISOU IN 2021
We look back at 2020 proud of the progress we made and determined to make even greater improvements in the year ahead. Sustainability remains an ongoing priority at Gisou with no finish line. We know we are not perfect, but we are passionate about improving and working hard to do so. Please follow along our journey to a more sustainable Gisou.
Likewise, we always welcome your feedback and ideas. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us via email at info@gisou.com.
