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It’s no secret that the beauty industry has a waste problem. Each year, around 120 billion cosmetic packages are created, but only a fraction will be recycled, according to Pact Collective, a nonprofit industry collective launched in 2021 by Credo Beauty and clean cosmetics brand MOB Beauty.
Pact Collective has many facets. First, it serves as a recycling alternative to city-run curbside bins, recycling initiatives run internally at planet-minded brands and the limited number of recyclers servicing the beauty industry. The concept is simple: Educate consumers about their products’ end-of-life while creating a data-driven, closed-loop system that reduces waste through in-store collection bins and consumer-friendly mail-back programs.
Pact Collective first launched take-back collection bins in Credo’s 15 stores and has since become the go-to partner for in-store takeback programs for retailers including Sephora, Ulta Beauty and COS Bar. It also serves Glow Recipe, Victoria Beckham Beauty, L’Oréal USA, Fenty Beauty, Caliray and Summer Fridays, among others, with its mail-back service. In total, the non-profit works with more than 140 brands and retailers and has diverted nearly 300,000 pounds of waste from landfills in its first three years of operation.
Pact Collective currently has 3,200 in-store collection bins, a four-times increase from the year before, which helped the company meet volume collection requirements for its biggest program of 2024: a closed-loop manufacturing initiative called New Matter.
In September, New Matter debuted with its first offering: single-materal pumps, made from plastic collected by Pact, for Credo’s first in-house skin-care range. Post-launch, Pact determined its first pumps saved one pound of material from going to a landfill or ocean for every 38 pumps created — and this is just the start.
“What’s so exciting about this work is the ability for the industry to come together to address a universal problem,” Carly Snider, executive director of Pact Collective, told Glossy. Snider joined Pact in 2021 after working for environmental innovation-focused companies like Vessel Works and B Lab, and she’s led much of Pact’s growth in her current role.
According to Snider, 2024’s phrase of the year was “pre-competitive cooperation.” “[All of our work since 2021] is unfolding into all sorts of conversations [within beauty] about how we can tackle problems like hazardous waste management,” she said. “We have big competitors having these conversations together. [Pact is becoming a] community where we can be the glue for the beauty industry when having these conversations.”
After launching its first pumps with Credo, Pact Collective now offers its New Matter packaging solutions to the entire industry and is working on similar projects for next year with like-minded brands. Snider hopes to continue to lead the industry toward circularity next year.
“We’re really focused on progress, and we’re here to support the beauty industry in a path forward that is rooted in data and opportunity,” she said. “We’re [offering up] solutions and [taking] action every which way we go, and we’re just seeing what fits and what lands; we really don’t want to be pigeon-holed by perfection.”
