Nature’s Secrets wins Gold at Presidential Environment Awards

Nature’s Beauty Creations Ltd., manufacturer of Nature’s Secrets, Panda Baby, Misumi and Champion personal care brands, was recently honoured with the highest Environment Award – Gold, under the Personal Care and Pharmaceutical category, at the Presidential Environment Awards 2021/22 ceremony held on 28 April. The Gold Award, the highest accolade at the ceremony, recognises the company that has made the most outstanding contributions towards environment conservation and eco-friendly activities. 

Since the company’s inception, protecting nature has been at the core of the ethos of Nature’s Beauty Creations Ltd (NBC), and the company has been a pioneer in spearheading sustainability initiatives in the FMCG manufacturing sector. As a result, NBC has continuously won national environment awards since the inception of the National Green Awards in 2011, including being the recipient of the highest Gold Award. The National Green Awards was consequently renamed the Presidential Environment Awards in 2016. 

“We are honoured to receive this prestigious award in recognition of our sustainability initiatives, and we remain committed in our efforts to achieve our vision ‘to become the most environment-friendly cosmetics manufacturer in the world,” comment NBC Director/Group CEO Samira Fonseka.

NBC carries out many environment sustainability initiatives under its Five Sustainability Pillars of 

1. Biodiversity Conservation and Carbon Sequestration, 

2. Sustainable Waste Management, 

3. Water Supply, Clean Water & Sanitation, 

4. Education & Awareness, and 

5. Ethical and Responsible Manufacturing 

A few of the many notable sustainability activities of the company include the company growing and maintaining Sri Lanka’s largest privately owned collection of medicinal plants around its factory complex for conservation and research purposes since 2008, and commencing the ‘Sirilaka Osu Uyanak Karamu’ project in 2020 through which the company intends to grow and donate over 100,000 valuable medicinal plants across the country by 2025. 

The unique, eco-friendly factory complex of NBC has also been a zero water waste complex since 2008, and carries out extensive sustainable waste management practices, including biogas generation, composting, rainwater harvesting, plastic recycling, and recycling waste paper to create recycled, handmade packaging for products, creating a sustainable circular economy. Plastic waste collection bins have also been set up across the island for the public to responsibly discard plastic waste. The collected plastic is then recycled with a recycling partner that uses the plastic waste to manufacture recycled plastic products for export purposes. Since the company’s inception in 2008, the use of single-use plastic water bottles has also been banned at the factory complex, and is yet another example of the company’s genuine and long-standing commitment towards environment protection since the company’s beginning. In the interest of protecting the environment, NBC also started phasing out single-use plastic sachets and completely stopped production of single-use sachets for commercial purposes by June 2019, well before government regulations on single-use sachets were announced in 2021. 

NBC also invested in the production of a patented organic certified bio-fertilizer to improve the health and biodiversity of the country’s soil that had been severely deteriorated due to excessive chemical fertilizer usage. In addition, the company also maintains its own organic certified and GAP certified lands for growing organic and healthy, nutritious vegetables and fruits, which are then made available to staff at subsidised rates. NBC is also the recipient of the Sri Lanka Health & Productivity Award – Gold, awarded by JETRO and COYLE, in recognition of the company’s outstanding practices in promoting health and well-being amongst staff. 

In addition to being the most eco-friendly personal care products manufacturer in Sri Lanka, NBC also maintains the most hygienically and technologically advanced manufacturing complex in its sector, exceeding international quality standards of GMP and ISO, ensuring that all its products are of the highest international quality. Products manufactured by NBC are exported to several countries across the world.