Ten years ago, the EU introduced a total ban on the marketing of cosmetics containing ingredients that had been tested on animals. This was a pivotal moment for animal protection worldwide, and 42 countries now have cosmetics animal testing bans in place.
At Unilever, we’ve been developing and using alternatives to animal testing to assess the safety of products and ingredients since the 1980s. We want to see an end to regulatory requirements for animal testing for cosmetics in every part of the world.
In 2018 we announced our support for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics and our Dove brand, which reaches tens of millions of consumers every day, was PETA-Approved.
We now have more than 25 PETA-Approved brands, which includes TRESemmé, Uncomplicated, Sunsilk and Lakmé. In 2021, Kate Somerville, one of our Prestige Splendor makes, grew to become the initial PETA-Permitted brand imported into China.
The considerable progress made in the last decade has only been possible due to all stakeholders working together with a shared ambition of ending animal testing.
Dr Julia Fentem, Head of Unilever’s Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre.
Unilever is also a member of Humane Culture International’s (HSI) #BeCrueltyFree motion, supporting its tough-hitting #SaveRalph campaign in 2021, and HSI’s Animal-Free Safety Assessment collaboration (AFSA), a international coalition operating to advance the acceptance and regulatory use of animal-free basic safety science worldwide.
We are fully commited to guaranteeing that our products and solutions and the substances they comprise are safe and sustainable with no animal screening – and we consider pleasure in sharing our knowledge with other individuals. That is why we’re working with partners to speed up the use of animal-totally free security science outside of our personal small business.
Read more about alternatives to animal testing at Unilever here
Defending the EU’s ban on animal testing for cosmetics
The development manufactured by the EU’s ban on animal screening for cosmetics was at hazard of getting undermined when in 2020 the European Substances Company (ECHA) referred to as for new animal tests on hundreds of frequently utilised cosmetics substances with a long record of harmless use.
Dove, performing jointly with PETA, Cruelty No cost Europe, The Body Shop and more than 100 animal security organisations, released a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), inviting EU citizens to present their assist for upholding the ban.
Additional than 1.2 million folks signed the ECI, sending EU policymakers a really distinct concept. Read more about the Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics ECI and what’s happening next here.
We think that regulators can and ought to go further more to section out animal exams by way of applying non-animal approaches for evaluating the security of all chemical elements – not just all those applied in cosmetics. Last yr the EU Fee introduced its intention to implement a roadmap to section out EU regulatory animal screening for substances and we search ahead to supporting this action as a result of the European Partnership on Alternative Methods to Animal Screening (EPAA).
Collaborating to advance use of alternate options to animal screening globally
We’ve been acquiring and applying possibilities to animal testing with about 70 associates for more than 4 a long time, publishing close to 200 scientific exploration papers in the past ten decades by yourself. Read a summary of our progress here.
A person of our key investigation associates is the Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure at the US Environmental Security Company, who we have been functioning with due to the fact 2015 to create and appraise our non-animal chemical safety assessment methods.
We’ve worked with more than 70 partners to publish around 200 scientific papers on alternatives to animal testing in the past 10 years
We’ve also worked with major academics, government laboratories and authorities to share our know-how and help construct animal-totally free basic safety science functionality in China for over a ten years, each instantly and in partnership with the Institute for In Vitro Sciences. In 2021, we ended up delighted that China released a new regulation removing the need for most imported cosmetics to go through animal tests in Chinese government laboratories.
This 12 months we helped launch the Intercontinental Collaboration on Cosmetics Protection (ICCS) – a group of extra than 35 cosmetics and chemical compounds providers and animal protection NGOs targeted on advancing the adoption of animal-no cost protection science for cosmetics merchandise and components globally. Read more about our work with the ICCS listed here.
We’re also investing in the following era of basic safety experts, collaborating with universities and labs close to the entire world to share entry to the most recent science, technology and new computational instruments for evaluating basic safety with no animal checks.
And as section of our operate to boost the wider use of animal-absolutely free security science, we existing our investigation at scientific conferences and workshops, and make all our investigate readily available on the web as a learning useful resource. Find out more about SEAC (Unilever’s Safety & Environmental Assurance Centre) here.
“Working together with a shared ambition”
“The sizeable progress created in the very last ten years has only been doable because of to all stakeholders doing work alongside one another with a shared ambition of ending animal testing,” claims Dr Julia Fentem, Head of SEAC.
“I am exceptionally happy of the part that the Unilever staff carries on to enjoy in sharing our non-animal protection ways and actively collaborating with some others. Some sturdy new partnerships have emerged as powerful contributors to reaching real alter, connecting top-edge animal-free of charge security science with advocacy to transform rules to be dependent on modern science and applications.”
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