The Body Shop opens beauty innovation hub

The Body Shop has opened a beauty innovation hub at East Croydon in London with an investment of £1m.

The new 3,200ft² hub's main focus is to aid the firm in minimising the environmental impact of its products and help to produce cosmetics with ingredients sourced from biodiversity locations.

In product formulations, The Body Shop plans to use 100% natural ingredients, which are not only traceable but also sustainably sourced, reported Edie.net. This hub will help to accelerate testing and product reformulation and will have access to sustainably sourced ingredient database.

The Body Shop's research and innovation director Gaetane David was quoted by the website as saying: "Earlier this year, we committed to reducing year on year the environmental footprint of all product categories by 2020 as part of our Enrich Not Exploit Commitment.

"Our new innovation hub is helping us to deliver that promise. By using a unique and extensive raw material database, we can test and reformulate our products to reduce their impact in a number of ways from biodegradability to water footprint.

"It also allows us to innovate much more effectively – accurately calculating the environmental footprint of new variants, for example, before any further development."

The Body Shop currently operates 3,100 stores across around 65 countries.

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Image: The Body Shop at Oxford Street, London. Photo: courtesy of Edwardx/Wikipedia.