Sustainability
We want to be one of those companies that take sustainability very seriously, act accordingly and explain as transparently as possible what sustainability means in the respective context.
Generally speaking, we understand sustainability as the claim to do the right thing or at least the best possible thing in every situation based on the best of our knowledge and belief, always based on the idea that the future of our planet also belongs to future generations and that their lives should be as better as possible than ours.
In the following you will get a large overview of how this attitude is reflected in our actions and those of our partners.
Overview
Company
Soap
Brush
Soap saver bag
Product packaging
Printing company
Shipping boxes
Shipping service provider
Website
Our company
We didn't have to think long about how to show how much sustainability means to us. We were convinced fairly quickly that we wanted to become a so-called B Corp (the B stands for Benefit and Corp for Corporation). What is that exactly? Quite simply, here is the statement from the German branch of the independent certifier B Lab :
Entrepreneurship obliges. B Corporations are companies that recognize this and commit to social added value and ecological sustainability in their articles of association. In a rigorous test procedure, they have corporate governance, employee rights and the impact on the environment, society and customers measured. Since it was founded in 2006, there are now over 4,000 certified B Corporations in more than 65 countries [...]. This international movement connects companies on their way to a responsible future of business.
We are still quite young as a company and the path is the goal. So we got in touch with B Lab, started the process and are happy to have officially received Pending Certified B Corporation status in February 2022. This means we now have 12 months to prepare for actual certification by building our business sustainably from the start. So stay tuned!
Our soaps
We only use selected natural ingredients, including organic oils, to make our soaps. That's why they are allowed to bear the "ICADA Natural" quality mark and are certified by The Vegan Society.
They are made by hand in a small family-run factory in south-west Germany. The company is located in a low-energy building and uses 100% regional green electricity, partly from its own photovoltaic system. In production and in all product formulations, there is a major focus on reducing water use.
In addition, the manufactory is involved in climate protection and in the social sector (e.g. Save the Children , the EU school fruit program ) as well as in various other regional projects in schools, clubs and the DRK .
The soaps are lovingly packed in an inclusive workshop for disabled people, a recognized institution for vocational rehabilitation.
Here you will find our Nirvana soaps: Hand Soap , Facial Soap and Body Soap as well as all three soaps in a set .
Our brushes
Our popular brushes are made by a family business that has been in existence for five generations. It is certified for the introduced European environmental management system EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) . The production is operated exclusively with locally produced green electricity, with 60% of the energy requirement being covered by the company's own photovoltaic system. The heat requirement (wood drying, heating) is 100% renewable with the wood chips occurring during production.
Our beech wood comes from Switzerland and bears the FSC® trademark, which distinguishes wood products that come from responsibly managed forests or plantations - certified according to the strict guidelines of the Forest Stewardship Council®.
Discover our Metanoia Dry Brush .
Our soap bags
Our soap bags are produced fairly in a textile factory in the beautiful east of Germany. The company pays its seamstresses above the minimum wage and attaches great importance to regulated working hours, a good work-life balance for employees, as well as a healthy working atmosphere and solidarity. We are happy to be able to work with a manufacturer that helps to maintain social stability on site by creating local jobs.
The bags are made of muslin, a fabric made from organic cotton. It comes primarily from a cultivation project in Uganda. The manufacturer of our muslin is based in Germany and is a permanent contract partner of the project. This means he is in control of the manufacturing chain from the cotton field to spinning, weaving, finishing and making up. He agrees fixed prices with the local farmers, including an organic surcharge. There is also a fair trade surcharge for the cooperative. Cultivation is organically controlled and all ecological aspects are monitored by an independent certification body. Depending on the yield of the harvest, it can happen that cotton fibers from Kyrgyzstan are used for a spinning lot, where our muslin partner is involved in another similar cultivation project.
The cotton cords come from Turkey and are certified vegan. All labels are also made of cotton. The inner label and the printing ink used are vegan. The outer labels are certified for product class 1 according to the OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 and the water-based printing ink used here has the ECO PASSPORT by OEKO-TEX® certification and corresponds to the STANDARD 100 of OEKO-TEX® Product Class I.
Discover our Metanoia Soap Saver Bag .
Our product packaging
All Aninsu products are packed in carton. Its high quality meets the requirements of all relevant regulations, ordinances, resolutions, guidelines and recommendations and is therefore recommended without restriction as packaging material for dry and greasy products.
The cardboard comes from Sweden and is made from wood from certified sustainably managed forests, which means that only as many trees are felled as can grow back. In addition, the production facilities of our paper manufacturer are FSC® Chain of Custody and PEFC™ certified.
No animal testing is carried out on our cardboard or our printing inks. The latter are based on vegetable oil and are therefore vegan, and they also meet the color eco criteria, which makes them more environmentally friendly than other colors.
Printing company
Beautiful packaging is one thing, but what happens behind the scenes also has to be right. We are happy to have a partner at our side who not only shares our values, but always acts sensibly based on them.
For example, the printing company makes use of the heat generated during the printing process via a specially installed heat recovery system. The electricity for the printing machines comes directly from the roof, because there is a large photovoltaic system there. And if that's not enough, green electricity is obtained from Bavarian hydroelectric power plants.
The open land around the print shop is maintained in a natural way without chemicals or peat and is not mowed in winter to provide insects with more places to hibernate. There is also a company garden and several bee colonies live on the premises. The fleet consists exclusively of e-cars, which are charged at the company's own charging station.
Our shipping boxes
For standard shipping of our products to consumers, we use premium ColomPac® flash bottom boxes, which are produced and sold by Dinkhauser Kartonagen GmbH. These packaging boxes are FSC®-certified and climate-neutral. Corresponding evidence can be viewed or downloaded in the download area of the brand page.
The most important reason for us to choose this cardboard box was that we didn't want to use boxes that you only use once. The packaging we use makes it easier to return or use it as a shipping carton, because it has two self-adhesive closures. We use one for shipping and the second can be used by the customer. This also saves us packaging tape.
Our shipping service provider
Sustainability is an important issue, especially in the logistics sector, because the (inter)national flood of parcels increases every year and the cleaner you are, the better. We are happy to have a partner at our side who sees sustainable action as a duty. In addition to the regular warehouse, he also runs a certified organic warehouse. When it comes to the classic topics of packaging and filling material, he also has environmentally friendly options on offer. For example, self-adhesive boxes are used for the most part, saving huge amounts of packaging tape, which is usually made of plastic, every year. Recycled material is used wherever possible, from cardboard boxes made from 80-90% recycled cardboard to recycled paper in the offices and recycled wrapping film in the warehouse. And there is also a special upcycling moment: all packing tables were built from used pallets! Our partner also enables us to ship climate-neutrally - an absolute must from our point of view.
But as an employer, our shipping service provider is also a pioneer in many areas: Diversity is part of everyday life, after all, the workforce is made up of 39 nationalities! At 40%, the proportion of employed women is well above the industry average, and many of them are young women. Basically, there are many young professionals here. "Fair Pay", i.e. fair, competitive payment, is normal, because our partner introduced €12 as an hourly wage long ago, long before it was discussed by politicians. It is also extremely important that there is no “gender gap”, i.e. no difference in the payment of different genders.
Our website
Our website is hosted on Google Cloud servers and is CO2-neutral. In addition, one of Google's sustainability goals is to run all of its data centers 24/7 with zero-carbon energy by 2030.
Shopify, the operator of our shop system, also takes environmental protection very seriously and has already promoted a number of topics . Of particular interest is his sustainability fund , which invests several million US dollars annually in promising solutions to combat climate change.
That's all great, but it's not enough for us. We also want to do something ourselves to compensate for the emissions caused by our website. That's why we extrapolated their amount for the year 2022, it should be about 8 kg. We have chosen to support a project through The Gold Standard , even if the minimum compensation is 1 ton. This is a non-profit organization set up in 2003 by WWF and other international non-governmental organizations to ensure that projects that reduce carbon emissions have the highest level of environmental sustainability while contributing to sustainable development.
The project we support is the construction of a biogas power plant near the village of Molu in the district of Koca Sinan in the province of Kayseri in Turkey. The project aims to avoid greenhouse gas emissions from the existing landfill by collecting biogas to generate electricity. In addition to the direct avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions, further indirect emission reductions are achieved through the CO2-neutral replacement of fossil fuels for power generation. The measure includes the installation of a landfill gas extraction system and a biogas-powered power generation unit.
All information can be found in the project overview . You can find our contribution in the form of offsetting 1 tonne of CO2 in the corresponding representation on the Gold Standard website.
