The HIGHR Impact Report

• LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION
• A HIGHR MISSION
• B CORP IMPACT SCORE
• GOVERNANCE
• ENVIRONMENT
• COMMUNITY
• CUSTOMERS

 

LEADERSHIP INTRODUCTION

A note from Molly:

"A few years ago after I had my children I decided to leave my career working for big corporate beauty brands to start a company that had a HIGHR purpose.

I simply wanted to build a beauty company that made better decisions for people and planet. With this mindset, we got to work and created our first product - HIGHR Lipstick, a solar powered Californian lipstick made with organic plant butters and oils.

Fast forward to now, I’m super proud that HIGHR Collective is the first luxury lipstick company officially certified as a B Corporation™.

The B Corp™ movement, comprised of leaders using business as a force for good, perfectly encapsulates the very reasons why I started HIGHR. B Corps™ meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability - elements of business that I thought were seriously lacking in color cosmetics as a whole.

I believe that the B Corp™ movement is the most important of our lifetime. If we can transform the way the world does business, I believe it will lead to less disease, less CO2 industry emissions, a happier workforce and a healthier community.

I’m also excited to have put in place additional goals for HIGHR to reach as we begin to grow, as outlined in our impact report.

As always, thank you so much for your support. It truly means the world."

 

A HIGHR MISSION

Everything on the lip is ingested.  Our mission is to convert 1M makeup users to cleaner, greener, HIGHR lip products in the next 5 years.

In our first year of quantitative impact goal setting, we recorded over 6,000 customers, serviced them with 72 lbs of organic raw material in place of traditional "forever chemicals" in lip products, and saved 68.1 metric tons of CO2 in the process.

Progress has been made in laying the groundwork for a cleaner beauty company, a guide that we will use and build upon as we scale.


THE HIGHR B CORP IMPACT SCORE: 96.5

THE B CORP IMPACT ASSESSMENT MEASURES A COMPANY'S IMPACT ACROSS FIVE PILLARS: GOVERNANCE, COMMUNITY, TEAM, CUSTOMERS AND ENVIRONMENT.

• Governance: 22.7
• Environment: 34.8
• Community: 36.4
• Customers: 2.5

 

HIGHR GOVERNANCE SCORE: 22.7

GOVERNANCE EVALUATES A COMPANY'S OVERALL MISSION, ENGAGEMENT AROUND ITS SOCIAL/ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, ETHICS, AND TRANSPARENCY. THIS INCLUDES THE ABILITY OF A COMPANY TO PROTECT THEIR MISSION AND FORMALLY CONSIDER STAKEHOLDERS IN DECISION MAKING THROUGH THEIR CORPORATE STRUCTURE OR CORPORATE GOVERNING DOCUMENTS.

What we're doing:

• We completed an impact assessment, updated our governing legal documents, and became a B Corporation, committed to a triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.
• We updated our mission statement and clarified the impact we want to create for our customers and wider industry.
• We have identified quantitative impact goals to give clarity and measurability to our mission statement.
• We report impact gains at the highest level of oversight - i.e, our board and investors - at the same time as business updates.
• At least 50% of our Board of Directors and Advisors are women.
• And finally, we share - a lot! We voluntarily share social and environmental performance of our company to our customers via email, social media and on our website.

How we'll improve:

• As we scale as a business, we'll introduce a written Code of Ethics to be observed at every level of the company.
• We'll look to narrow our renewable energy focus to local projects in and around our home base to give back to our community and sharpen our environmental mission.
• As our company grows, we'll regularly share board level communications and reports with all employees.

HIGHR ENVIRONMENT SCORE: 34.8

ENVIRONMENT EVALUATES A COMPANY'S OVERALL ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AS WELL AS ITS IMPACT ON THE AIR, CLIMATE, WATER, LAND AND BIODIVERSITY. THIS INCLUDES THE DIRECT IMPACT OF A COMPANY'S OPERATIONS AND, WHEN APPLICABLE ITS SUPPLY CHAIN AND DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS. THIS SECTION ALSO RECOGNIZES COMPANIES WITH ENVIRONMENTALLY INNOVATIVE PRODUCTION PROCESSES AND THOSE THAT SELL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT HAVE A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.

What we're doing:

• HIGHR excels at providing toxic reduction / less hazardous solutions to our customers shopping for lip products.
• By utilizing organic, Fair Trade and natural resources for raw materials, HIGHR lip formulations do no harm compared to competitors who utilize pervasive "forever chemicals" in the form of silicones, mineral oils and the plasticizers Polyethylene and PEG chemicals.
• HIGHR lip product formulations and supply chain operations go beyond what is required by law in any global jurisdiction.
• Packaging materials are determined after a thorough life cycle assessment.
• At HIGHR, we monitor and record energy usage to be offset.
• We have a recycling program for end-of-life lipstick tubes, and consider end-of-life for all forthcoming products.

How we'll improve:

• HIGHR will introduce additional lip products to market with shorter life cycles, and will have significant waste-reducing packaging solutions for each.
• We will increase our local supplier sourcing to over 20% of total raw materials.
• We will continue to source reduce packaging throughout customer touchpoints as we expand to additional sales channels.

 

HIGHR COMMUNITY SCORE: 36.4

COMMUNITY EVALUATES A COMPANY'S ENGAGEMENT WITH AND IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH IT OPERATES, HIRES FROM, AND SOURCES FROM. THIS INCLUDES DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, ECONOMIC IMPACT, CIVIC ENGAGEMENT, CHARITABLE GIVING, AND SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT. IN ADDITION, THIS RECOGNIZES BUSINESS MODELS THAT ARE DESIGNED TO ADDRESS SPECIFIC COMMUNITY-ORIENTED PROBLEMS.

What we're doing:

• HIGHR is women-led and majority woman owned.
• We currently track diversity of ownership in our supply chain, and our largest supplier is woman-owned.
• We have longstanding relationships with our suppliers, and have been working with the same suppliers since our first year of operations.
• We advocate for improved environmental policies focusing on expanding the use of renewable energy.
• We partner with Native Energy to identify national projects to benefit to reduce and offset our company's operational carbon dioxide.
• We screen our suppliers for their environmental impact, and identify suppliers who believe in our mission.
• Over 75% of our raw materials have a third-party certification that is either USDA organic or Fair Trade certified.

How we'll improve:

• Within the next year, we'll identify a research group to benefit, focusing work around how external factors such as personal care products impact and disrupt women's hormones.
• We'll create a formal standing commitment of 1% net sales to the chosen beneficiary.
• We'll review our sourcing to ensure that all raw materials are also fair or direct trade to improve livelihoods for underserved groups in our supply chain.
• We will increase our national sourcing to 20-39% of finished goods.
• We will evaluate switching to a financial institution who is also a Certified B Corporation.
• We will develop a formal verification process for all suppliers.

 

HIGHR CUSTOMER SCORE: 2.5

CUSTOMERS EVALUATES A COMPANY'S STEWARDSHIP OF ITS CUSTOMERS THROUGH THE QUALITY OF ITS PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, ETHICAL MARKETING, DATA PRIVACY AND SECURITY, AND FEEDBACK CHANNELS. IN ADDITION, THIS SECTION RECOGNIZES PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT ARE DESIGNED TO ADDRESS A PARTICULAR SOCIAL PROBLEM FOR OR THROUGH ITS CUSTOMERS.

What we're doing:

• HIGHR has third-party qualified certifications in terms of product performance. We have conducted clinical and user trials and tests to quantify our products benefit for the end user.
• With every product batch, we have quality control measures in place in-lab.
• We monitor, batch and relay customer satisfaction.
• We conduct customer surveys to increase involvement of our customers in our product development process.
• We introduced a shade extension created by our community directly.
• We crowd sourced product names, attributes and packaging concepts with our community.

How we'll improve:

• We will assess the outcomes produced for our customers in onsite reviews.
• We will develop written policies around ethical marketing, advertizing and customer engagement.
• We will formalize our customer testing group, further involving customers in product development.
• We will develop a loyalty program, to reward our most loyal customers.

 

Let's take cosmetics HIGHR.