Unlocking Curiosity: Regenerating Business from the packaging up with Jo Chidley of Re and Beauty Kitchen

Jo Chidley is one of those forces of nature, unconstrained by the way things are usually done. As the co-founders of Beauty Kitchen, she and her partner refused venture capital, keeping their business free to become a B-Corp and to put people and planet ahead of profit. She's dedicated to producing the best outcome for the people who work for her as well as for the people who buy her products. And in the process of finding the best ways forward, she came across the horror of single use packaging and the devastation it's causing both in terms of the extraction and the post-use pollution. So Jo founded 'Re' to find ways to bring 'reuse' back into the 'reduce, reuse, recycle' triad. Now, she's invited to Davos to speak about the way this could transform the vast global packaging industry.

So in this week's podcast, we talked about why this is essential to transforming our world, and how it could work. Jo has ideas that seem (and are) innovative now, but ten years from now, will be the way things are done. With enthusiasm, integrity and a great deal of humour, she offers solutions to the meta-crisis that rely on each one of us changing behaviour - and she's devoting her life to making it possible - indeed inevitable - that we do.

Bio:
Jo Chidley is a circular economy expert, chemist, herbal botanist, and co-founder of Beauty Kitchen and Re.

Founded in 2014, Beauty Kitchen is the highest scoring B Corp in the UK beauty industry and it's changing the face of the beauty industry with its aim to create the most effective, natural, and sustainable beauty products in the world. Jo went on to found Re, a company devoted to reducing the mountains of waste from our global $1tr annual single use packaging industry. As one of the pioneers of sustainable beauty, Jo and her company have accelerated the transition to Reuse through sustainable innovation by implementing Cradle to Cradle design into Beauty Kitchen’s circular approach. Jo's been instrumental in developing the world’s first closed-loop solution for beauty packaging and powered the service behind the ground-breaking Re programme which is resuable packaging for personal care brands & retailers. Beauty Kitchen is recognised on the UK’s 50 Most Disruptive Companies list and has won numerous industry awards, including ‘Who’s Who in Natural Beauty’.

Jo has won multiple industry awards, including the Natwest Everywoman Award in the Brand of the Future Category and was recognised as one of the 10 most influential people in Natural Beauty in the UK. She’s been featured in the likes of ELLE, Woman & Home magazine and BBC News and is a founding member of the Global Advisory Board for Sustainable & Natural Cosmetics. Jo was voted Nr 2 in the 2018 Who’s Who of Natural Beauty.

The Beauty Kitchen https://beautykitchen.co.uk/
Re https://www.rereworld.com/
Jo on Linked In https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochidley/
wet uplink https://uplink.weforum.org/uplink/s/
The Ethical Consumer https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/