Blistex is committed to making a meaningful impact in our communities and caring for our environment. That commitment encompasses developing and manufacturing products with high standards for quality and effectiveness, positively impacting our team members along with the broader community, and limiting our impact on the environment to work toward a more sustainable future.
Our commitment to that future has led us to take meaningful steps to green our energy consumption and offset carbon emissions, and to take actions to improve the sustainability profile of the packaging we use as well as reduce plastic pollution.
Our approach to sustainability includes three areas of focus — energy, greenhouse gas emissions and packaging.
Blistex purchases and retires Green-e certified Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) associated with wind-based generation to match with all the electricity consumed at our facilities to help lower our carbon footprint.
We have also taken steps to reduce our facility energy consumption by implementing energy conservation measures such as installing and operating a solar-based system for pre-heating water used in manufacturing and utilizing energy-efficient lighting throughout our Oak Brook, Illinois campus.
Blistex estimates its Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions, including direct emissions from company operations and indirect emissions from purchased utilities.
To offset these emissions, we are collaborating with GreenTrees, the largest reforestation program in the United States as measured by carbon credits issued. As of February 2024, the GreenTrees reforestation program has removed a total of 7,792,791 metric tons of CO2e from the atmosphere, equivalent to the annual emissions of 1.5 million passenger vehicles.
Through its collaboration with GreenTrees, Blistex purchases, and GreenTrees retires on its behalf, carbon credits issued by the American Carbon Registry (ACR) representing verified carbon removals generated by GreenTrees’ reforestation and afforestation projects in a volume that offsets Blistex’s estimated Scope I & II emissions.
Blistex is a financial supporter of CleanHub, an organization dedicated to stopping non-recyclable plastic waste from entering waterways. Blistex’s financial support enables CleanHub to fund and verify the collection, recovery, responsible waste management, and disposal of tens of thousands of kilograms of plastic waste through its partner organizations that operate collection hubs in Southeast Asia.
See our tracker for progress against the collection target set by Blistex and CleanHub for our current fiscal year (ended June 30).
Blistex is also taking steps to increase its usage of recyclable and post-consumer plastic packaging. For example, we worked closely with a supplier to develop tooling capable of producing a lipstick-style package for lip care products that is composed entirely of polypropylene. To date, this package has been certified to be recyclable in several European markets including the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Starting in 2023, we have used this package version for all new products introduced in lipstick-style containers.
With regard to paper-based packaging, we are aiming to increase the percentage of post-consumer and sustainably certified fiber materials over time and will provide more details as we make progress.
At Blistex, we believe in a future where safety assessments for drug and cosmetic products are animal-free. We also believe we have an important role to play in helping to make that future a reality.
Blistex does not conduct animal testing on our products anywhere in the world, except in the rare instance where foreign governments require it.
We actively partner with research and advocacy organizations to advance alternative testing methods that do not require the use of animals.
For example, since 2018, Blistex has made an annual contribution to the Johns Hopkins Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing. We encourage others interested in furthering these efforts to join us in supporting the effort.