Our Coral Reef Safe Proof Point was flagged as an area to look into at our last Integrity Council meeting earlier this year - here’s where we’ve got to…
Until three months ago, we felt Coral Reef Safe was an important claim to help brands make. We had taken guidance from Hawaii’s state ban on sunscreen with certain ingredients (as well as other localities) together with research bodies such as Haereticus Environmental Laboratory, who had identified ingredients they had found to be harmful to marine life in certain concentrations.
However, with guidance from our Integrity Council, we have taken the view that it is an evolving—and confusing—field scientifically, and much of the current academic literature is contradictory.
In the absence of any legal definition of ‘Coral Reef Safe’ or of any standardised way to test formulations for coral reef damage, the term “safe” is argued by a growing number of scientific and beauty industry commentators to be misleading as it gives potentially false assurances to the shopper about products bearing such labels.
However, it is not only potentially misleading because of the scientific basis for the claims but also because “Reef Safe” can mislead shoppers about the wider impact of a product on marine life e.g. through the packaging used or the possible emissions related to the full life cycle of the product which, in turn, contribute to global warming/ocean temperature increases, the most pressing risk to coral reefs globally.
In light of this, we have renewed our stance on this issue and we are removing it from our public Framework. This will mean we won’t be approving any new Coral Reef Safe claims, but if you already have a Coral Reef Safe claim, we are allowing a 9-month grace period before we remove them altogether. If you have any questions about this update please reach out to community@provenance.org.
Further Reading: