VIDA STORIES

Building a Beautiful, Sustainable Future

Building a Beautiful, Sustainable Future

Receiving our B Corp Certification is the culmination of the work our founder April Gargiulo started a decade ago. In Vintner’s Daughter, her goal was to create skincare that has a positive impact on our skin, our lives and the planet we share. Discover more about B Corp certification and how it continues our original mission and helps us forge our path for meaningful impact.

Growing up in the world of winemaking, April considered herself lucky to have spent so much time in a community that places such a high value on craftsmanship, quality, and attention to detail. It also informed her respect for ecological consciousness. After all, in this world, shortcuts are not allowed and practically every grain of dirt is considered for its quality. From this groundwork, she crafted a mission to create products from the finest ingredients in the world, using time-honored techniques to bring about profound and lasting balance and health in the skin. This commitment to pure, transparent sourcing led to a broader mantra in our company to do more with less, respect the people, processes and packaging and always be transparent with our community about how and why we do things the way we do. 

In the ten years since we began, the work has continued to hold ourselves to a higher standard, meeting and exceeding the requirements to be named Climate Neutral, Cruelty-Free and Vegan, California Green Business Certified while always consciously sourcing, creating sustainable and FSC-certified packaging and giving 2% of each sale to organizations supporting women and children. We are proud to announce we have recently been awarded B Corp certification, the result of a years-long effort, joyfully impacting every part of our business.

What does B Corp certification mean, and why does it matter?

B Corp Certification is a designation that a business meets high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. There are less than 4,000 companies that have earned B Corp status in the world. To achieve certification, a company must demonstrate high social and environmental performance and exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance to be measured against B Lab’s standards and be publicly available on their B Corp profile. Here are some more specific examples of what led to our certification.

  • We positively contribute to our employees’ financial security, health and safety, wellness and career development, engagement and satisfaction.
  • We are consistently engaged with and impacting the communities we operate, hire from, and source from, prioritizing diversity, equity & inclusion, economic impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management.
  • We are actively improving our environmental management practices and their impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct result of our operations and our supply chain and distribution channels.
  • We are evaluated on our company stewardship by customers through the quality of our products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.
  • We are graded on our overall mission, engagement around our social/environmental impact, ethics, and transparency.

 

Aligned values and a shared mission

There was a natural symmetry between the B Corp markers (Community, Governance, Environment, Customers) and our own set of brand values. These practices have been woven into the fabric of Vintner’s Daughter since its launch. But this is by no means an end. Every day, we strive to improve our footprint from sourcing to packaging, planting trees, purchasing offsets, and beyond. We will also continue to give 2% of revenue to charities benefiting women, children and the environment. Joyfully, the amount we have been able to donate has grown yearly. We are deeply grateful to our community for this. We are a female-founded company rooted in and deeply connected to Mother Earth. “How could I create a brand which doesn’t give back to something which has given us so much?” says April. “I discovered a shocking fact. Only 1.7% of charitable dollars are given to women- and girl-focused organizations. Until that number is higher, we will prioritize these underserved communities with our partners' and customers’ support. 

Meeting the moment

While the finalization of our certification was a milestone, we are doubly proud of the score we received. Based on the B Impact Assessment, Vintner's Daughter earned an overall score of 110.9. (A score of 80 qualifies for B Corp Certification.) What’s more, our B Impact Score is over double the median for ordinary businesses completing the assessment, currently 50.9. This recognition will further our commitment to operating a company that is a force for a good while delivering the best in nutritional skincare. “With this B-Corp process, we have not only measured and fully recognized these achievements, but we can also see where we can grow, facilitating continuous improvement within our brand for both people and planet,” explains April. Our community's conscious decision to invest in products made with a sense of responsibility and respect for each other and our planet is what allows us to continue this work. 

Where we go from here

Every day, we strive to improve our footprint from sourcing to packaging, planting trees, and purchasing offsets. It is part of our responsibility to our community and our world. However, the biggest thing we do for sustainability is to produce fewer but better products. “The world is waking up to the true costs of our consumption, and it is something we have thought about since day one,” says April. “It is why we produce fewer but more finely made products because there is nothing more sustainable than less. So the future for us is to continue to follow this North Star of creating only game-changing products that offer incredible value to our customer's lives.” Our ultimate wish is that the beauty world continues to focus on environmental action and sustainability and also focuses its attention on the human toll. From ingredients used in traditional beauty to harmful working conditions to far from living wages paid, we will continue to help to impact change for all. 

Related Reading: What Does Natural Skincare Mean?