Cruelty Free Skincare - by Go-To Skin Care

Go-to is Certified Carbon Neutral

Go-To is prouder than a stage mum in Toddlers and Tiaras to announce that we have been officially accredited by Choose Cruelty-Free Limited as a cruelty-free company.

This means that NONE for our products or individual ingredients have been tested on animals.

In addition, some for our products are suitable for vegans (check individual product ingredients for details). In the interest of complete transparency, there is one animal Go-To extensively tests on, but that’s the founder Zoë, and she totally asked for it..

Go-To is prouder than a stage mum in Toddlers and Tiaras to announce that we have been officially accredited by Choose Cruelty-Free Limited as a cruelty-free company.

official One Girl Partner

One Girl

Official corporate partner

Go-To is thrilled to partner with One Girl - a charity empowering girls through education

130 million girls around the world aren’t in school right now, simply because they were born a girl.

One Girl is working to change that. And of course we want to help.

Here's the rub:

You donate $1 to One Girl at checkout, and we’ll donate $1 to honour your generosity.

And together, we will help One Girl change the world, one girl at a time. We will! We really will.

One Girl believes every girl has the right to education, no matter where she’s born or what her culture says.
They are committed to educating 1 million girls across Africa, and we, along with you,
are excited and eager to contribute to this powerful vision.

To find out more about One Girl and how they educate and empower girls, head to: www.onegirl.org.au

And thank you. No good deed goes unnoticed. (Especially this one.)

Go-To has been certified by the Carbon Reduction Institute as a NoCO2 business.
This means we are carbon neutral and ready to brag about it.

Go-To is proudly cruelty-free and acutely aware of the implications of using palm oil from Southeast Asia,
so becoming carbon neutral was a natural evolution for us.

As part of the certification process, we undertook a full carbon audit of all our operations.

And now we offset 100% of our emissions.

NoC02 Certification

NoCO2 is the highest level of certification offered by the Carbon Reduction Institute. And it means that we (and any other
company with this certification) has completely removed its climate change impacts. In short: It’s reeeeaal good.

Bored? Curious? See our certificate here.

Offsetting Our Emissions

We offset our carbon emissions (things like products, packaging, electricity, staff travel on the company G4 etc) by purchasing
carbon credits from a range of projects.

The carbon credit projects have been verified against either the Voluntary Carbon Standard or Gold Standard, which are two
of the world's leading third-party verification benchmarks, and correspond to real, permanent, verified and additional
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Our Projects

We have purchased carbon credits from diverse projects, including wind and solar projects in China, energy efficiency
projects in Uganda, and forest preservation projects in Indonesia.

Wind and solar projects in China help reduce China’s carbon footprint and achieve their emissions reductions targets, improve
public health and creative economic opportunities in renewable energy. The Indonesian forest preservation project aims to
reduce Indonesian emissions, and protect the endangered Borneo Orangutan and other endangered RED species. The
Uganda cookstoves project replaces traditional cook stoves with fuel-efficient stoves in households and restaurants. This
reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves the livelihoods in poor communities.

Climate change is a fact. And we’re proud to be doing our own little bit.

For more information about carbon reduction, check out the Carbon Reduction Institute Website.

Properly Clean

Face Hero

Very Useful Face Cream

Properly Clean

Lips!

Face Hero

Very Useful Face Cream

Exfoliating Swipeys

Exceptionoil

GO-TO AND PALM OIL

We are acutely aware of the ethical, environmental and social implications of using palm oil from Southeast Asia, we consciously avoid using palm oil in our skin care.

Our founder, Zoë, is an active and passionate ambassador for The Orangutan Project, and is very well versed in this subject. She has seen firsthand the devastation that deforestation creates for the land and the locals in Borneo and knows the desperate plight of the orangutan is very, very real. (Donate HERE.)

The big picture, however, is far from black and white, and contrary to popular belief and despite very best intentions, boycotting palm oil is a misguided way to help this dire situation. Since the land itself – and its ability to create crops and therefore money – is what is of value, if it's not palm oil, then it will be coconuts, coal, rubber etc. Donating money to buy back forest is far more useful

Zoe Foster Blake, founder of Go-To skin care, all natural skincare

Where we're at

Many ingredients used in skin care are derived from palm oil, and they are not easily identified. There are multiple steps using multiple manufacturers in the process of obtaining some of the high-end ingredients. To further complicate it, some of the intermediate ingredients can be derived from either palm or coconut, and manufacturers may not segregate the sources. What fun!

As we dug deep (real deep) in to the supply chain of our ingredients, we discovered that some of the ingredients we use are more likely to be palm oil derived than from coconut. These ingredients include a surfactant, emulsifier, and a derivative in one of our fragrances.

We have confirmed that the suppliers of these ingredients are members of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm oil (RSPO). This organisation audits and certifies suppliers based on their level of sustainability and traceability.

However, we want to be sure that any palm oil used to make ingredients for Go-To is completely sustainable, and aspire to the highest level of sustainability, called Segregated and Identity Preserved. This is where there is no mixing of supply from unknown locations and is a 100% guarantee of sustainability. This is the Palm Oil Holy Grail, and currently nearly impossible to achieve, not just for us, but for everyone: The demand simply does not meet the supply.

Go-To is small; we can't take control of this process to ensure what we get is the sustainable stuff. Even very big skin care companies can't. We are making our very best efforts to do the right thing.

Despite our frustration, we are not alone, as our friends at The Orangutan Project explain:

"The Orangutan Project (TOP) acknowledges that Go-To, like many other manufacturers, who have the very best of intentions in making products that are palm oil free, have encountered great difficulty sourcing palm oil free derivatives due to the complexity of the supply chain and industry as a whole. TOP recognises that the production of many products requires ingredients that currently have no alternatives available that are A) 100% palm oil free, or B) have certification of single source. TOP therefore does not exclude these companies from helping towards orangutan conservation and welfare."

– Leif Cocks, president and founder of The Orangutan Project

The Goal

Go-To is working to:

a) Make our range free of palm oil and its derivatives, or, b) Only use Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) ingredients from segregated supply chains.

Both of these are challenging.

One, because it is virtually impossible to create a high quality, pleasant, effective cosmetic product without the use of palm oil or palm oil-derived substances to emulsify, preserve and bind ingredients, which is why there are only a handful of products authentically claiming this.

And two, because the palm oil industry is a mess. We are a tiny company trying to do something that not even the very big companies have achieved, because demand at this point for CSPO just doesn't exist.

We believe and hope this will change. Manufacturers are starting to demand more access to sustainable palm oil and its derivatives, which means there will be more reason for harvesters to sell palm oil that is ethical and sustainable.

Meanwhile, we are injecting much love, time and care into removing the minuscule traces of palm oil derivative we do use in just TWO of our products, so that we are completely palm free, while simultaneously hunting for suppliers who can offer conflict-free, certified sustainable palm oil ingredients to use in place of those we currently do use. To our knowledge, no such thing currently exists.

We didn't set out to be the gold standard in palm oil-free skin care, but we are trying our best to do what we believe is right. Many friends in the industry express the exact same frustrations and share our goals.

Being an honorable, accountable, transparent, and GOOD company is very important to Zoë and Go-To, so if you have any further questions please contact us at info@gotoskincare.com

(And, hey, why not adopt a baby orangutan?)

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DOIN' OUR BIT

Go-to is Certified Carbon Neutral

Go-To is prouder than a stage mum in Toddlers and Tiaras to announce that we have been officially accredited by Choose Cruelty-Free Limited as a cruelty-free company.

Go-To is prouder than a stage mum in Toddlers and Tiaras to announce that we have been officially accredited by Choose Cruelty-Free Limited as a cruelty-free company.

Go-To is prouder than a stage mum in Toddlers and Tiaras to announce that we have been officially accredited by Choose Cruelty-Free Limited as a cruelty-free company.

Go-To is thrilled to partner with One Girl - a charity empowering girls through education

Go-To has been certified by the Carbon Reduction Institute as a NoCO2 business.
This means we are carbon neutral and ready to brag about it.

NoC02 Certification

Offsetting Our Emissions

Our Projects