10.14.21
With sustainability weighing heavily on the minds of consumers and product makers in the beauty industry, Provital has launched Ethicskin in collaboration with Mujeres y Ambiente (M&A).
M&A is an association that supports women entrepreneurs in growing their agricultural micro-businesses, and engages in biodiversity conservation, among others.
Ethicskin is a multifunctional and well-aging active ingredient developed and produced around its eco-ethical initiative in Mexico. Aiming to continue its contribution to a just world and a sustainable future, Ethicskin embodies Provital’s new broad-spectrum ethos in which biodiversity and environmental conservation go hand-in-hand with economic and social growth.
Provital’s collaboration with M&A started 10 years ago with the goal of improving the well-being of rural communities in Querétaro. Thanks to the initiative, collaborations have been established between public organizations, private entities, academic organizations and local communities, and the benefits are beginning to appear in the form of business opportunities, employment, research, technology transfer and capacity-development opportunities. For the production of Mexican arnica (raw material used for the Ethicskin), producers that participate in the project are remunerated 45% more than the average wholesaler in the Mexican market.
With the development of Ethicskin, the company has also received the Internationally Recognized Certificate of Compliance for the Nagoya Protocol -- the first to be awarded to a cosmetic ingredients’ supplier.
In accordance with this protocol, producers in Querétaro’s rural regions signed a first-of-its-kind agreement, giving access to the genetic resources of plants cultivated in Mexico for traditional medicine, and fairly compensating rural producers for their labor and inherited knowledge.
The M&A initiative has been internationally recognized for its work in conserving biodiversity. It has had the support of the United Nations Development Program with the award of its 2020 Equator Prize, which described the project as an “example of effective biodiversity conservation through the sustainable use of genetic resources.”
Biological diversity supports the functioning of a healthy ecosystem and contributes to economic development and improving local livelihoods, an essential aspect to achieve its 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals.