Sustainable Scent

Scent's invisibility means we often don't think about its role in environmental sustainability. But given we use fragranced products around 20 to 30 times a day it's helpful to understand the basics of the life-cycle of scent.

Fragrance ingredients come from two key sources, nature and petroleum. For a long time nature was the only source of fragrance ingredients. Natural scent materials are inherently sustainable as long as they're grown & harvested in a way that supports the ecosystem they're part of. Unfortunately this isn't always the case, with ingredients such as Indian Sandalwood being over-harvested to the point of collapse. Luckily there's a growing network of sustainable producers and biochemists developing new scent sources from things like seaweed.

Synthetics on the other hand are derived from petroleum. Their production is energy intensive and in some cases creates ingredients that hang around in the environment for a long time. Synthetic musks are the worst offenders, bioaccumulating in the environment and disrupting (amongst other things) the reproductive systems of fish. 

So what to do if you want to make sustainable scent choices? Where possible reduce your use of synthetic scents (e.g. go with a fragrance free laundry detergent), and switch to naturally scented products made by brands you know are careful about how & where they source their ingredients. And, if you're not sure, just ask.

Image by Harriet Thistlethwayte