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Biossance

Hydration-focused, performance-optimized skincare

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Biossance
Biossance's Sustainability Rating:

Fair

Biossance is rated Fair - it doesn't share enough information at a brand level, but its parent company has made some progress.

Biossance's parent company, THG Beauty, uses a majority of renewable energy in operations, reports in detail on its emissions measurement, and has SBTi-approved emissions reduction targets. It also has multiple initiatives to reduce the impact of its shipments, including offsetting emissions and choosing lower-emission transit options. However, Biossance doesn't make any brand-level commitments related to its ingredients. Choice of ingredients is a strong determinant of environmental impact, and it uses many ingredients that pose a significant threat to the climate, including phthalates, harmful sun care ingredients, other petrochemical-based ingredients, and mica. Biossance doesn't utilize any alternative models, such as concentrates, to reduce its waste and emissions footprint, and its packaging is still mostly plastic with unknown recyled content.

Biossance is owned by THG Beauty


  • Ingredients

    Commons couldn't find any clear ingredient commitments for Biossance. It claims to have a restricted substances list, but doesn't detail what's on the list or provide a working link. Its parent company makes commitments about sustainable palm oil across all owned brands. Choice of ingredients is a strong determinant of environmental impact, and Biossance still uses many ingredients that pose a significant threat to the climate, including phthalates, harmful sun care ingredients, other petrochemical-based ingredients, and mica. Its products incorporate bio-based and/or biodegradable ingredients, and it's working to find vegan alternatives for ingredients like squalane. Biossance doesn't report having any product or company-level certifications.


  • Containers & Packaging

    Biossance doesn't share any information about its packaging on its brand site, it appears to use a mix of glass, FSC-certified cardboard, and partially-recycled plastic. It hasn't made any efforts to concentrate its products or minimize its containers, which increases shipping emissions and packaging volumes. Its parent company, THG Beauty, has made overall efforts to minimize the impact of its shipments by working to reduce delivery emissions and reducing the volume of new material used in its secondary or tertiary shipping packaging.


  • Energy & Water Use

    Biossance's parent company, THG Beauty, shares information on its overall energy strategy. It uses a majority of renewable energy to power its operations, though it's unclear what proportion is used in production vs in offices or storefronts. THG Beauty has targets for expanding its use of renewable energy to 100% by 2025, ahead of its 2030 goal. It implements water conservation and energy efficiency measures in its operations. Biossance has a global production span, which is standard for the industry.


  • Refill & Reuse

    Biossance doesn't utilize any alternative models or methods to avert waste. Its parent company, THG Beauty, offers a recycling takeback program for some of its UK-based brands, but this program isn't mentioned or promoted on Biossance's site. Biossance doesn't appear to offer any bulk sizes.


  • Slow Cleaning

    Biossance doesn't frequently release seasonal or new products, which helps prevent production of excess inventory.


  • Marketing

    Commons is still evaluating this brand's marketing emails.


  • Transparency & Reporting

    Biossance doesn't appear to have a sustainability page or centralized source of relevant information. It also doesn't link consumers to its parent company's comprehensive resources. THG Beauty, its parent company, publishes a detailed annual report with a clear, impact-driven strategy and progress reporting. Its last annual report was published in 2024. Biossance shares a complete list of ingredients used in its products.


  • Emissions Tracking

    THG Beauty, Biossance's parent company, internally measures and publicly reports its company-level emissions in partnership with, or with auditing from, a third party. It includes a detailed breakdown by scope and identifies its top driver of emissions. The last reporting period was 2024. In its most recent update, its estimated emissions footprint was 1,054,670 tons CO2e.


  • Targets & Offsets

    Biossance's parent company, THG Beauty, has SBTi-approved emissions reduction targets for the medium-term (5-10 years), long-term (10+ years). It has reported on its progress within the past year, and is on track for some of its targets, but is very off track for its scope 3 target. THG Beauty is certified climate neutral by Climate Impact Partners. It offsets emissions from its shipping and shares brief information about the projects it supports.


  • Supply Chain & Labor

    Biossance's parent company, THG Beauty, doesn't publish information about its supply chain partners. It publicly shares a supplier code of conduct, which prohibits forced labor, prohibits child labor, ensures the right to collective bargaining, includes environmental clauses, and requires grievance mechanisms. Its code of conduct doesn't disallow unauthorized subcontracting, or ensure a living wage. THG Beauty has a stated policy of regularly auditing its supply chain partners, which can mitigate human and environmental risks.


  • Advocacy

    Biossance doesn't openly disclose its climate-obstructive trade association memberships. It's a member of 1 large climate-obstructive trade associations: Personal Care Products Council. It isn't a member of advocacy organizations advancing climate policy. It doesn't employ any state lobbyists. Biossance didn't donate more than $100k to climate-obstructive candidates or PACs from 2018-2024.

Our ratings are based on a scale from 1 (harmful) to 5 (best). How we rate →

View sources

https://www.biossance.com/blog/proud-to-be-clean-at-sephora/

https://www.thg.com/investor-relations/results

https://www.biossance.com/blog/palm-oil-cosmetics/

https://www.biossance.com/c/what-is-squalane/

https://s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/catalogue.thehutgroup.com/thg/THG-Planet-Earth.pdf

https://www.thg.com/our-impact/protecting-climate-and-nature

https://www.biossance.com/blog/planet-friendly-packaging-101/

https://www.biossance.com/blog/sustainable-packaging/

https://www.biossance.com/blog/clean-beauty-today-cleaner-planet-tomorrow/

https://fcdn.thg-corporate.com/thg/Web_THG_AR_24_v2_a07a138bd2.pdf

https://www.biossance.com/c/clean-academy-skincare-ingredients-library/

https://thg.ir-data.com/article/id/12?

https://www.climateimpact.com/news-insights/news/natural-capital-partners-and-climatecare-become-climate-impact-partners/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20expertise%20of%20Climate%20Impact

https://sciencebasedtargets.org/target-dashboard

https://www.thg.com/our-impact/supply-chain-and-circularity

https://www.personalcarecouncil.org/about-us/member-companies/

https://fminus.org/lobbyists/

https://www.fec.gov/data/browse-data/

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Personal Care Products


Sustainability information was last updated in May 2025.

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