TAKE A MINUTE
THE MODERN
Eco-Warrior
Sustainability in salons is a movement that is escalating in the beauty industry as owners race to Go Green. One of those leading the change is Paul Frasca, Founder of Sustainable Salons, who reveals how the movement is gaining momentum and why it has been a cause close to his heart for more than 20 years. By Anita Quade
The moment that changed my life and started my sustainability journey was when… “I moved to Amsterdam in 2002 and ended up living there for the next eight years and after a few years of living in Amsterdam I met my partner Ewelina. I was just working in a hair salon, coming up with all my crazy ideas about what I wanted to do with my life and I talked to my partner who was studying fashion sustainability and it really blew my mind about all the supply chain issues of waste etc. I remember thinking about the damage it was doing to the planet. I thought what is happening in the hair industry? I went back to my salon and looked at all the waste that was going on the floor and wondered why no-one was trying to solve this problem.” I became more serious about the cause when I moved to Australia... “We moved to Australia in 2011 and set out on a journey to study salons waste and wrote a detailed report. We found that this problem was far deeper than what we thought and realised that we have to build something that is more than recycling, we have to build something under the banner of sustainability which is people, planet and profit and that is really what set us off on a journey of discovery.” We’ve come so far since then at Sustainable Salons am so proud because... “Today we have 1200 members in our program that are a reflection
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of who we are – people that care about the planet, that love business and also want to make sure they are taking care of the people in our community.” I would say Sustainability is so close to my heart because of … “My partner - she really woke me up to the importance of sustainability. Before that I grew up on a farm where we were growing roses, we lived off the farm - we had chickens and olives, so as an Italian boy growing up our weekends were spent making salami or pasta, so I grew up understanding the importance of the land – from that and meeting my partner its been a passion project ever since.” I think the one thing the beauty industry can start doing immediately is… “Asking why? Why are we as an industry not embracing sustainability? why are we not an industry producing product lines and essentials that we use every day in our business more environmentally friendly? Meaning why are these materials being made to just be one use and you can’t even recycle it after use. Why are brands not embracing the conscious consumer who is demanding product lines to have better packaging and better natural ingredients?. Organisations like Sustainable Salons can come in and provide you with the platform needed to elevate your beauty salon to a new level for the conscious consumer.” In my experience everything comes from the top down this is important because… “If the CEO is not on board with sustainability and with the future of where the conscious consumer is moving as a brand then they are going to find it really hard to catch up later. I like to give this analogy – everyone was laughing at Tesler 10 years ago saying this is not the future, we are a well established car industry with diesel and unleaded – it’s impossible. The reality is that its not that Tesler was bigger than the car companies it was that Tesler understood the consumer. They allowed people to put $1,000 deposit on a car before it was made - most knew it would take many years. Over 600,000 people worldwide put that deposit down so that shows they had a customer base even before the car was made – no car company had ever seen that before.
