During Climate Week NYC, the Green Beauty Community (GBC) brought together leaders from across professional beauty and the larger sustainability community to move the sustainability conversation from individual efforts toward shared industry action.
Following the Green Salon Impact Tour’s regional events in Anaheim, Detroit, Phoenix/Mesa and Myrtle Beach, this Climate Week NYC event created a space where students, stylists, brands, salons, educators, sustainability organizations and other stakeholders could learn from one another, review assumptions, and identify practical ways to accelerate progress.
The premise was simple: Sustainability challenges are larger than any one company or organization can
address.
Progress depends on collaboration, clearer information, practical action, and a community willing to share what is working and what still needs work.
Held at amika headquarters in Brooklyn, the event featured interactive breakout sessions and presentations from prominent brands like John Paul Mitchell Systems and Innersense Organic Beauty, which connected salon craftsmanship and product formulations directly with waste reduction, resource efficiency, and ingredient transparency.
Feedback from attendees exposed a significant information gap such as 65% of respondents did not know their salon’s recycling practices and 35% doubted that empty beauty containers actually get recycled.
To counter these challenges, the panel emphasized the importance of collaboration over competition to establish credible, specific, and measurable environmental goals.
The GBC outlined a core five-part industry roadmap:
- Make sustainability more specific: Move beyond broad claims by explaining exactly what is being done, what is measured, and what evidence supports it.
- Make action practical: Help salons, stylists, and teams understand what they can realistically achieve within the demands of daily, real-world work.
- Make progress collaborative: Utilize the wider community to share learnings and success stories, including experiments or initiatives that did not work out as planned.
- Connect sustainability to the workplace: Consider environmental impact side-by-side with the health, safety, and day-to-day experience of beauty professionals.
- Keep learning from the customer: Listen, test, explain, and adapt continuously because different audiences may value entirely different things.
To learn more, visit: https://greenbeautycommunity.com/
Founded in 2023, the Green Beauty Community connects beauty professionals around sustainability through
education, resources and community action.
The Green Salon Impact Tour brings technical education and community activities into local beauty communities.
