Sustainability
Enbodie and the Planet: How We Treat Sustainability Like Safety
Darren Crowder · · 4 min read
A product can be safe for your skin and still be bad for us, by how it affects our environment and things like our food chain. It can have a calm green leaf on the label and a formula that never leaves your drain. Most of us have no way to tell.
That is the second half of what Enbodie exists to do. We started with your body. We also look at what a product does to the world your body lives in.
Personal Care Harmonised With Planetary Care.
We treat sustainability like safety
Enbodie grades products on six pillars: safety, suitability, sourcing, environmental impact, integrity and transparency. Four of the six look outwards, at where an ingredient came from, what it does after you wash it off, and whether the claims on the label hold up.
The rule is simple. A sustainability finding is treated exactly like a safety finding.
It has to name its evidence. It is worked out by fixed rules, not an AI's opinion. And if we have no evidence, we say so.
Pollution: the chemicals that do not go away
Some ingredients are built to last, and they last far beyond the bathroom shelf. Enbodie checks for three families of concern.
Enbodie is a global platform, and the law differs from place to place. So, as an example, here is what our current data shows for the UK only, to give you a feel for the level of detail we go down to:
- Forever chemicals (PFAS). Among products sold in the UK, we have flagged 251 for PFAS ingredients. Where we can, our recommendation engine suggests a product in the same category with an equal or better Enbodie grade and no more hazardous ingredients.
- Microplastics. We flag products whose ingredient lists include plastic-based ingredients, matched by name. In the UK that is 8 in every 100 cosmetics and 6 in every 100 hair care products.
- Persistent ingredients and water life. This one is not a UK count. We flag the cyclic silicones D4, D5 and D6, which the EU restricts under REACH Annex XVII (entry 70), and four quaternary ammonium ingredients for their toxicity to water life.
Every flag names the regulator or standards body behind it, such as the European Chemicals Agency.
Packaging, palm oil and honest claims
Packaging is where good intentions meet the bin. We have built the place to hold a packaging record, including how recyclable it is. It is not filled in for the catalogue yet, so today we do not grade packaging. We would rather say that than pretend.
We also look for palm-derived ingredients, because we cannot see that the palm oil is certified sustainable. And we test the claims themselves: a "silicone-free" label that the ingredient list contradicts is picked up as a finding. We are widening that test to other "free from" claims.
One rule across every country
Regulation differs by place. A limit set in California is not a limit set in New York, and Scotland is not England.
Enbodie stores every limit against the regulator that issued it and the place it applies to. A product is judged only against law that reaches where it is sold. And if something is banned anywhere, we treat it as a red flag everywhere.
The nine goals we are aligned to
Enbodie is aligned to nine of the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- Good Health and Well-being (3) and Gender Equality (5)
- Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (9) and Reduced Inequalities (10)
- Responsible Consumption and Production (12) and Climate Action (13)
- Life Below Water (14) and Life on Land (15)
- Partnerships for the Goals (17), which is on our roadmap rather than live today
As a young company, we are putting in place the frameworks to monitor, measure and progress each of these goals. As we grow, we expect to share openly what the goals are and how we are progressing towards them.
Where we stand
Enbodie is going through the B Corp certification process. We are saying so now because we would rather be held to the standard in public than claim it early.
We were also a nominee for The Earthshot Prize 2026, Prince William's global prize for the environment. We didn't make it among the 15 finalists, and we say so plainly. We're still proud of our contributions. The global beauty industry produces more than 120 billion units of packaging every year, according to the British Beauty Council, and we continue to work towards helping industries like health and beauty cut that waste. We believe educating our users and helping them understand the impact will ensure a better future for all.
Personal care and planetary care are not two separate choices. They are the same choice, made with better information.
If you would like to see how a product measures up, scan it with Enbodie.
Personal Care Harmonised With Planetary Care.
Cover photo: Drew Farwell on Unsplash.