The Jojoba Promise: Cargill Beauty unveils its sustainable sourcing strategy

22 Nov 2023 --- Cargill Beauty launches the Jojoba Promise, its global sustainable manufacturing initiative for the personal care industry. In part one of this interview, Personal Care Insights speaks to Aude le Grand, marketing innovation manager at Cargill Beauty, about why the company chose to narrow focus on the jojoba crop, and how its Jojoba Promise program improves sustainable cultivation and social benefits.

Cargill Beauty worked with Greenflex to assess risk factors within the Jojoba supply chain. This collaboration encompassed comprehensive interviews with jojoba suppliers and a detailed study of expectations held by consumers and personal care manufacturers. As a result, Jojoba Promise’s sustainable sourcing strategy was solidified.

What inspired Cargill Beauty to focus on sustainability, specifically in jojoba cultivation?
Le Grand: Today’s consumers want to know where their beauty product comes from, how they are produced, what’s in them, and if they have been produced with respect for the welfare of people and the planet. Building a solid sustainability story behind each brand is therefore a key priority for personal care manufacturers. 

Recognizing this need, Cargill Beauty uses nature-derived ingredients, champions a responsible supply chain and fully integrates processes and applications. In recent years, we have made various commitments under the Cargill Beauty Promise — our sustainability strategy for the personal care industry. The Cargill Beauty promise is based on three key pillars: Sourcing from sustainable supply chains, designing more sustainable ingredients and empowering people.

Jojoba is an amazing botanical, offering unique benefits for various personal care applications. By equipping our customers with solutions from nature, we can help them deliver high-performance products that are reliable and sustainable. With the Jojoba Promise, Cargill Beauty is setting a new standard for the sustainable sourcing of this crop, enabling the long-term success of all involved in the value chain, from farmer to manufacturer and consumer.

How does your initiative contribute to improving the environmental impact of jojoba cultivation on a global scale?
Le Grand: The Jojoba Promise is based on a solid sustainable sourcing strategy, focusing on three main areas: Resilient farmers and communities, sustainable water use and traceability.

Jojoba stands out as one of the leading oils, characterized by its wax content, constituting about 98%, shares Cargill Beauty.At Cargill Beauty, we believe in long-term relationships where the entire value chain benefits from our activities. That’s why ensuring resiliency for our farmers and their communities is so important. 

In our commitment to fostering ethical and sustainable practices, we have implemented various measures and initiatives. These encompass the establishment of fair, safe and equitable working conditions, ensuring fair incomes and providing access to healthcare for all. 

We adamantly oppose forced and child labor in our supply chains, striving toward gender equality. Secondly, we facilitate the automation of harvests by assisting our partners in acquiring cutting-edge equipment and machinery. This not only minimizes the reliance on manual labor in challenging conditions but also enhances overall yield. 

Thirdly, recognizing the interconnectedness of success in the value chain, we actively support farmers through comprehensive training in good agricultural practices. A notable illustration of our commitment is the composting project, revolutionizing barren landscapes by converting organic jojoba waste into compost, thereby contributing to sustainable land use.

The second pillar of the Jojoba Promise focuses on sustainable water use. Jojoba is a shrub that thrives in the desert and can grow on land that is typically unsuitable for other crops. The fact that the plant requires very little water is a great asset, but the desert environment can be harsh, and water is a precious good. 

That’s why we try to improve water access and be as mindful as possible when using water for cultivation. One hundred percent of our suppliers use drip irrigation in their jojoba fields, and we support initiatives to valorize reclaimed water.

Lastly, traceability is one of the cornerstones of the Jojoba promise. We aim to deliver high-quality, safe and traceable jojoba derivatives to the personal care industry. That’s why we work with Fair for Life-certified farms that can offer traceability from field to factory.

What specific regions or communities will benefit most from this initiative?
Le Grand: The Jojoba Promise will be applied across all jojobas purchased by Cargill Beauty and used to manufacture jojoba derivatives at Cargill’s Arizona facilities.

Regarding the first steps, we aim to automatize harvests to increase yields in Peru and Egypt and reduce water consumption in the jojoba supply chain thanks to sub-surface irrigation in Israel.The jojoba plant is widely employed for medicinal purposes and native to Southwest US and Mexico.

Our Global Cargill jojoba supply chain would be traceable from farm to customers by Cargill Beauty requiring its suppliers to be Fair for Life-certified and implement a robust traceability system so that it has a guarantee on the traceability of the seeds between fields and our facilities.

What are some interesting findings from the risk analysis performed with Greenflex?
Le Grand: The risk analysis brought to light several significant findings, particularly in social, environmental and health considerations. Concerning people and social risks, the manual nature of jojoba harvest in hot regions poses potential threats to workers’ health, compounded by a lack of regulations regarding working conditions and safety in our sourcing countries. 

While our suppliers maintain certifications for ethical practices, it remains crucial to stay vigilant. Gender equality emerges as an additional concern, with women susceptible to discrimination in the agriculture sector.

Cargill’s Jojoba Promise aims to support our partners in Egypt and Peru to help automatize harvest and reduce or eliminate the risk caused by manual labor.

In Part Two of this interview, le Grand will discuss technologies used to advance sustainable jojoba cultivation, how Cargill will measure the program’s success and what challenges are foreseen in implementing Jojoba Promise.

By Venya Patel