2025 January Sustainable Perfumery Week

We're all going to be looking at upcycled naturals and synthetics, and materials produced by green chemistry - how to use the new palette to create the scents of the future. 

Why not get a headstart?

• Monday to Friday 11a.m. to 5 p.m. UK time.
• 27 - 31 January 2025

What we'll do:

• Make fragrances each day
• Explore and use sustainable, biodegradable materials
• Look at materials we could be crossing right off the list
• Formulate with new, greener alternatives
• Plan for the 2030 changes and wider ethical issues

To meet UN climate targets - and for the EU 2030 Green Deal - all industries must adapt and improve. Even for those operating outside the EU, it will still have an impact as most perfumery materials are in use in the EU, so their manufactuers and producers will automatically comply.

The only materials available for our use beyond that time must have a neutral or positive impact on the earth, or must be considered "essential" - not the same as essential oils. This will affect the production of perfumery materials, both natural and synthetic, and will an even bigger impact on packaging.

The major manufacturers and suppliers are already adapting and planning ahead, and while many brands will go right up to the line and drop unsustainable products at the last moment (and probably blame IFRA out of laziness) we have an opportunity to develop new formulas and adapt current ones so that this will not come as a huge shock in 2029.

While the fine fragrance industry makes a relatively small difference, materials we use are also used for laundry and personal cleaning products - where the massive amounts are used worldwide and wash straight into the water supply - so if materials which affect marine life, including many essential oils, are banned or restricted, then it affects us too.

If often comes as a surprise to people that the most sustainable products are not necessarily naturals. For example blackcurrant bud absolute uses 25kg of blackcurrant buds to make 1kg of absolute, and we could have been eating the blackcurrants. By the traditional route, it takes 1000kg of rose petals to make 1kg of rose absolute and a lot of water, and the ground could have been used to grow grapes, for example.

It's no longer going to be a matter of pride to say how much of the world's rarest resources are used up to make a drop of expensive scent.

Bluewash and greenwash - making marketing claims that are misleading, vapid and often downright untrue - aren't going to stand up when well-informed customers can see right through them. Greenwishing - stating what you hope to do without any proof - is equally scorned by perceptive young people.

Information on materials is available on the bigger companies' websites as they are opening up about their progress, but it can be difficult to interpret. As well as formulating using the industry's new and traditional green products, we'll talk through where to find the information you need directly, rather than picking up bits and pieces on fragrance forums, many of which have been interpreted inaccurately along the way.

We shall be working with materials in ethanol, but the course content will be relevant for people who work in other solvents too.