Burt's Bees | Respecting Nature

Everything we depend on to survive comes from nature.

Our food, oxygen, materials for shelter and clothing, ingredients for life-saving medicines—it’s all from nature, and all dependent on biodiversity. (That’s the term for the variety of life on Earth, from bees to berries to bacteria.) Protecting nature today and working to preserve it for tomorrow just isn’t optional.

There are 1.5 million different kinds of living things on Earth that we know of. When most of them are thriving, the planet hums along—and we thrive too. But right now, that’s not the case.

We’re losing whole populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians and insects at 1000 times the historical rate. It’s the beginning of what could amount to an unprecedented butterfly effect: when the food chain breaks down, human life is in serious peril.

We take from nature, so we must respect and preserve it.

– Roxanne Quimby, our co-founder

NATURE SUPPORTS US. WE SUPPORT NATURE.

Everyone can find a way to use resources more thoughtfully and tread more lightly on the Earth so that future generations of people and all other species can thrive together.
Here’s where we’re starting.

Landfill-Free Operations

We’ve kept all of our operational waste out of landfills since 2010, diverting everything to compost bins, recycling centers or waste-to-energy facilities. (Same goes for our office— no one has a desk trash can, we all use sorting bins.) You may have a composting service in your area that you can use, or you can recommit to recycling and reusing to cut back on your household waste. We’re also constantly innovating on the packaging front, looking for ways to cut waste from our containers and to incorporate more recycled materials into each bottle, tube and tin.Look Under The Cap

CarbonNeutral® Certification

Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere and re-absorbed by the ocean and plants all the time. But people cause an uptick in CO2 by burning fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, and by cutting down swaths of forest that would otherwise help photosynthesize that excess. That’s carbon emissions in a nutshell.

Companies can invest in carbon sequestration projects to offset their carbon yield and get to a net-zero output. We’ve sustained that certification since 2015. You can buy personal carbon offsets if you’re concerned about your footprint, but we’d suggest trying to shrink that footprint first.

Water Restoration

By purchasing Water Restoration Certificates from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, we’ve returned millions of gallons of water—the equivalent of our own consumption—to watersheds like the Colorado River and the Middle Deschutes Watershed region in Oregon. You can manage your own water usage, too—you’ll find some ideas here.

Re-Wilding Efforts

Where there once was wilderness, wilderness should be again. We paired up with Minnesota-based non-profit Fresh Energy to boost biodiversity around solar installations through wildflower planting and land management. Some solar installations try to inhibit surrounding plant growth and insects, but by taking the opposite approach we can encourage local plants and their pollinators to co-exist with the energy-collecting panels.

By encouraging biodiversity, we help preserve our own place in the world. The Burt’s Bees Foundation and its partner organizations research and protect natural areas, and help community organizations and local government to expand green space, improve land management, and reconnect people to nature.

THE BURT’S BEES FOUNDATION

We’ve given $3.5 million in grants in support of honeybee health and biodiversity. Here’s what else we’re up to.

Mapping 6000+ bees species with the Half-Earth Project
Planting bee buffers and wildflowers alongside farmlands with RAFI
Acting as a landscape partner for Habitat for Humanity
Supporting conservation projects of the Triangle Land Conservancy and Eno River Association

Our
Goal-O-Meter

PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION

PROGRESS,
NOT PERFECTION

Our sustainability reports give you an in-depth look at what goals we’re setting. We hit some, we miss some—it’s a work in progress, and we’re always learning.

2018 Sustainability Goals Update

Our
Goal-O-Meter