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Comfort Zone - Rethinking packaging

With its commitment to meeting the highest standards in relation to sustainability and regeneration, Comfort Zone is reducing its plastic footprint through the use of innovative packaging design and an important partnership to stop ocean bound plastic

Published in Spa Business 2021 issue 4

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Italian B Corp, The Davines Group, is renowned for its commitment to the sustainable creation and production of its result-driven Comfort Zone skincare line.

Since 2014, the company has been aware of the damaging impact plastic packaging is having on the planet and has been working hard to develop innovative solutions that remove the need to use plastic, while engaging with global initiatives that help to counter its impact on the environment.

A circular approach
Although the spa and beauty sector has always been reliant on plastic packaging and it has traditionally played an important role in keeping products fresh and ensuring a safe user experience, the Davines Group has been accelerating its efforts to challenge its reliance on the material.

Through a programme of rigorous product research and development, the focus has moved away from the use of virgin plastic made from fossil fuels, towards the use of innovative packaging materials made from recycled or renewable plastic. Comfort Zone has also reduced the weight of its glass packaging and introduced fully refillable solutions, while ensuring all its packaging is recyclable.

Following exhaustive scrutiny of the way it approaches the use of fossil fuel-based materials, the company has now updated its production processes so 59 per cent of all packaging used is recycled or bio-based plastic.

Significantly, Davines Group has reduced its reliance on plastic by a massive 631 tons since 2014, thanks to ongoing research and development into innovative, eco-friendly alternative package solutions.

Commenting, Davines Group chair, Davide Bollati, says: “We’re conscious that packaging has an environmental impact and no material can be considered perfect, but properly managing our products’ end-of-life stage is very important. It’s crucial we eco-design the packaging right from the beginning of that lifecycle.

“We aim for simplification, by reducing the volume of the packaging components as much as possible, eliminating unnecessary plastic elements and introducing refillable solutions, just as we’ve done for our new Comfort Zone Sublime Skin Intensive Serum,” he explains.

Plastic footprint
In 2020, the company calculated its plastic footprint using 3Ri standards (www.spabusiness.com/3ri), which revealed the business generated a total of 721.9 tons of plastic that year. This included waste produced by manufacturing and offices (27 per cent), plus the packaging of products sold worldwide (73 per cent).

These findings led to an investigation by the Group into whether its plastic waste was being correctly managed globally.

The outcome has been the development of initiatives to significantly reduce the company’s environmental impact in areas of the world where there’s a lack of institutions and technology to enable the full and proper recyclable process.

This has led to the partnership with Plastic Bank that will expand in 2022 to ensure an even stronger positive impact on planet and people. l

More: www.spabusiness.com/ComfortZoneBlog

photo: Davines Group

"It’s crucial we eco-design packaging right from the beginning of its lifecycle, while properly managing our products’ end-of-life stage" – Davide Bollati, chair, Davines Group

Tackling waste

Supporting sustainability initiatives enables the Comfort Zone to amplify its work to reduce its environmental impact

Tracking plastic on the app / photo: Plastic Bank

In autumn 2021, the Group started a plastic collection project with social enterprise, Plastic Bank (www.plasticbank.com), to prevent 100 tonnes of material being dispersed into the environment and ending up in the world’s oceans.

This initiative involves the management of ethical recycling ecosystems which are run by local people in the coastal communities of Indonesia, the Philippines and Brazil.

They gather ocean-bound plastic waste from land and beaches to stop it reaching our oceans and receive bonuses for doing so, which contribute towards the cost of food, fuel, school and health insurance, to help improve their quality of life.

Commenting on the partnership, Bollati says: “There’s no social sustainability without environmental sustainability, and no progress without respect for ecosystems and human rights. Without human ecology, there is simply no future.”

Without human ecology, there is simply no future

David Katz started Plastic Bank in 2013 – Comfort Zone is supporting the initiative / photo: David Katz, Plastic Bank

photo: Plastic Bank

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