Companiesandme

Sunscreens are increasingly marketing themselves as "natural", "green" or "organic" but much of these claims are misleading. We are faced with the challenge of needing to compete in this arms race of green claims, but want to do so with integrity. 

In making sunscreen, it is important to consider both the impacts of the product (ingredients of product and recycle/re-usability of packaging) and manufacturing (energy use, waste, and any other environmental impacts of our operations). Many of the claims made about the product (organic, natural, marketing as a "green" product) are a getting a little ahead of themselves, so we've considered using packaging to show the way we have been manufacturing since 1994, such as our commitments to recycling, use of wind power, offsetting, etc. 

Maintaining Integrity: the Truth About Sunscreen

We want to maintain the integrity of the KINeSYS brand, which was originally designed as a high performance product to help elite athletes stay healthy in the sun, as opposed to shifting the product to focus on organic, green, and natural, which are all questionable claims, when it comes to any sunscreen. You see, manipulating "inorganic" zinc or titanium materials at the atomic level is far from being natural or green. In context, one nanometer is one billionth of a meter. A piece of paper is 100,000 nanometers thick, minerals don't come in this size in nature. These ingredients are what protect our skin from the sun, but calling the sunscreen in which they are sold organic is plain and simply greenwashing. Zinc & Titanium are "inorganic".

How you can help us 

We want to show our environmental commitment (since inception in 1994). We trademarked earthkind some years ago as our philosophy, so we'd like to call this out on the packaging, because its part of our original commitment, continues to be, and is necessary to compete with the claims made on other sunscreen products.

Should we chase the direction of the green claims being made, focus on what we do know we can back up (more responsible manufacturing), or use our packaging to take a stand (e.g. "No sunscreen is organic or natural, but we've done the best we could."), similar to what you'd expect from a company many of us admire, Patagonia? 

What kinds of things do you care about when purchasing sunscreen or other products that make claims about their "green-ness"? Do you trust what is on the packaging or look deeper?

We have two options to show our earthkind philosophy, I'd appreciate your feedback to help shape the way we sell our sunscreen in the future.