SUN CARE
How to analyse the
environmental impact of sunscreens
Environmental awareness continues to grow and is now even a driver of the sun care category. It increasingly determines the choices of today’s consumers, which is why it’s important to develop more sustainable solutions for sun care. By Marcel Schnyder, head of BASF’s global technical centre for sun care
M
ore and more people are willing are safe and what is the impact on the to adapt their consumption environment when all the ingredients are put behaviour with regard to the together to make a formulation? environmental consequences of the products they use. This also applies to cosmetics. NEW MATRIX EVALUATION SYSTEM As part of this development, the potential Until recently, no transparent or scientifically impact sunscreens may have on various sound system to rank and potentially ecosystems has received a great deal of improve the environmental impact of a attention, especially the given formulation has been available wellbeing of corals and on the market. As a global market BASF’s EcoSun Pass label coral reefs. The adverse leader in sun care ingredients, effects of sunscreen BASF has developed a ingredients on matrix evaluation system these underwater to measure the impact of eco-systems, sunscreen components on marine life, the environment. endocrine The EcoSun Pass from disruption and BASF Care Creations is bioaccumulation a methodology to assess have reached a high the environmental impact of level of awareness and are widely discussed in the Did you know? media. We expect this trend to The EcoSun Pass was recently awarded continue or even accelerate and it’s highly the BSB Innovation Prize 2020 in the category Concepts. An initial group of likely that the demand for eco-friendly sun customers are also using BASF’s EcoSun protection products will rise significantly in Pass as a marketing tool, displaying the future. the EcoSun Pass label on their sun care As a result, the personal care industry is packaging as a verification symbol. Visit www.carecreations.basf.com/ecosun-pass being asked to find solutions. Additionally, for more info. consumers are asking which ingredients
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UV filters used in sunscreen formulations. Using a completely new approach, it allows for the holistic and transparent assessment of UV filters with regard to their environmental impact based on internationally recognised criteria. It not only considers environmental factors for individual UV filters, but also provides a comprehensive environmental evaluation of the entire filter system within a sunscreen product. This comprises eight different parameters, including the acute and chronic aquatic toxicity of a substance, e.g. the intrinsic capability of a substance to cause damage to aquatic organisms after short- or long-term exposure.
RATING AND RANKING SUBSTANCES The bioaccumulation potential of a substance is assessed using a twostep approach with the octanol/water partitioning coefficient (log POW) as an initial screening criterion, followed by more profound data (i.e. bioaccumulation studies). Another aspect, which is part of the assessment of our EcoSun Pass, is the biodegradation of a substance, e.g. the breaking down of organic matter by microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, and how quickly this happens.
