A black and white close-up image of 3 people sitting in an audience, smiling and laughing

Lush Employee Benefit Trust

Lush has been 10% Employee owned since 2017…

For Lush to be the company it is and behave in the way that it does, it needs to be an independent company.

It is not public, not owned by anyone else like a corporation, and not owned by a private equity company with a purely profit based motive.
In 2017, the Lush Shareholders gifted 10% of the company shares into the Lush Employee Benefit Trust (EBT). The EBT is a Trust in which 10% of shares are held, and along with the other Shareholders of the business, the Lush EBT owns a proportion of the Lush business. As an employee of the Lush Group, you are a beneficiary of the Lush EBT, and 5 Trustees look after the trust on your behalf.

There is this horrible repugnant idea that businesses can be sold along with its staff. Many of our staff have been with us for years – so their life’s work is sold with the business.

KARL BYGRAVE • LUSH DIRECTOR • COMPANY APPOINTED EBT TRUSTEE

Why we wanted an EBT…

Employee Ownership is something that we had been exploring at Lush for over 15 years before becoming part employee owned.

Our employees and ethics are the heart of our business, and employee ownership has always made sense as we already foster so many of the typical cultures we see in employee owned businesses.

The purpose of having an employee ownership scheme is to:

Enshrine our ethics
Ensure the independent ownership of the business
Maintain the bonus culture
Promote two way inclusive communication to share knowledge & give every Lush Colleague a voice

We believe that the best ownership structure for the business going forward is that its shares are held in both:

Family Ownership
Employee Benefit Trust

Why we’ve done this

The Founders and Shareholders appreciate the contribution that every member of staff makes to the business, and having all of our staff as beneficiaries of the EBT recognises their efforts and commitment in making us the company that we are.

If a member of staff came to work for us because they believe in the ethics of the business, we can make sure that those ethics are observed, preserved and protected through the EBT.

We don’t believe that employees should be bought and sold with a business. The company will not be bought or taken over by an external body, and the EBT guarantees this. If the current Shareholders decided to sell their shares to an external buyer, resulting in a change of control, the business would need majority consent on this decision from our staff, through a vote managed by the EBT Trustees.

The Shareholders that currently work in the business have made an agreement and commitment that if and when they sell their shares, they will sell them back to the company. They may also be sold to the EBT which we expect to happen in time, resulting in the shareholding that the EBT owns to grow over time.

10%

Employee owned

The upshot is

Our Colleagues will always own a stake in the business. No one will be able to come along and buy our company at the highest price.
We can ensure the company is independent and can behave in the way it wants to behave.
We have a structure of People Representation throughout the business which means we have representatives in place to pass messages to every staff member, get messages to our shop and factory floors and provide a communication channel for our colleagues – no matter where they work in the business – to ask questions and share ideas directly with the business to help positively influence the future.
There is a duty for everyone who works for Lush to help us stay true to our Ethical Charter. All of us as beneficiaries of the Lush EBT can have an active role in keeping us accountable to the ethical standards we commit the business to in the Charter.
Through the Lush EBT, we commit to ensuring all Lush Colleagues on a permanent contract have access to a bonus scheme in every role across the Group business.
Our Ethical Charter cannot be compromised or degraded without consultation with our beneficiaries and Trustees. If someone thinks we’re not compliant with the Lush Ethical Charter, they should report this to the EBT Trustees.

The current trustees

5 Trustees look after the Trust on behalf of all Lush Colleagues.

2 Company appointed Trustees
2 Staff elected Trustees
1 Independent Trustee

Meet the trustees

1 / 5

Tim Maguire

Staff Elected Trustee

I’m so honoured to be a staff-elected Trustee on the EBT board. It’s been almost eight years with Lush for me, in two different countries, and across that time I have met so many fantastic employees and been able to be a champion of both the customer experience and, through the EBT, employee voice as well. I’m so excited and honoured to join the fold and to get some representation for us here down under on the EBT board!

Silke Bischof

Staff Elected Trustee

When we first started the election process for the next EBT representatives in April, little did I know that I would find myself being elected a trustee in the end. I am truly overwhelmed with emotion that so many colleagues voted for me.

With the EBT and our Ethical Charter we have not only pledged ourselves to our values but also granted each employee a voice to shape our company. For me, this is democracy at its core because with this privilege comes the responsibility to get involved. Naturally, I am extremely curious what we will achieve together.

If I had one wish, I would encourage all employees to support a cause of their choosing as a volunteer.

Volunteering can create enrichment on all levels. It brings a valuable contribution to the cause itself, promotes personal development and will eventually feed new experiences and skills back to what you do at Lush. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s a true ‘win, win, win’ scenario?”

Helen Moreton

Independent trustee

Helen brings with her 18 years of experience in retail employee ownership via the John Lewis Partnership. “I am absolutely delighted to be joining Lush as the new Independent Trustee of your Employee Benefit Trust. Not only do I love your products, but I applaud everything you stand for. Doing work of meaning is of great importance to me and I have enjoyed a career of working with and for several purpose led organisations.u0026#8221;

Mo Constantine

Lush Co Founder, Shareholder, Inventor and Board Appointed EBT Trustee

Mo Constantine co-founded Lush in 1995 with six co-founders including husband Mark and has been involved in the creation and manufacture of innovative beauty products for the past 25 years. Mo manages our manufacturing business and specialises in inventing solid, unpreserved and unpackaged products and was granted her first patent in 1988 for the invention of the resoundingly popular solid shampoo bar, although most commonly known as ‘inventor of the Lush Bath Bomb’.

Most recently, Mo led the team working on the concept and opening of our very first Fresh shop in Paris.

Karl Bygrave

Lush Director, Shareholder and Board Appointed EBT Trustee

Karl Bygrave started his career with Constantine u0026amp; Weir, a previous business venture from the founders of Lush, in 1983 as a trainee product compounder and has now been working for Lush for 24 years.

Karl has had a very colourful journey in the business starting with the set up of the Japanese business back in the early 2000’s. Karl also relocated to Australia for a number of years to re-organise the Australian business and introduce Lush into the New Zealand market. Along with his fellow colleagues, Karl managed Lush’s entry into several other international markets including The Middle East, as well as often managing the fall out of many partner relationships and re-structures and even set up the very first Lush website!

Through his love for animals, has championed Lush’s non-animal testing work through The Lush Prize and Lush’s Human Cell Culture testing programme for almost ten years. Having worked in and managed many areas of the business including UK Mail order operations, International Regulatory Affairs, Legal, Emerging Markets and Intellectual Property protection, in Karl’s words ‘It is his job to remove any block or barriers to enable the company to do what it wants to do while managing the business risk’.

u0026#8220;Iu0026#8217;m very touched to have been asked to be a trustee as I believe it is an important aspect of the business and important recognition of every member of staff’s contribution,u0026#8221; he says.

The Lush Ethical Charter

One of the principle aims of the Lush Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) is to protect the core values that enable us to maintain our ethical standards.

To that aim we have a process in place via the EBT to ensure that decisions are not made which may breach or materially affect our ethical practice without first taking the views of the staff of all Lush Group companies into account. This also allows for everyone working in the company to be thoroughly briefed about the issues behind any major proposed changes so that we can make a meaningful contribution to that decision and the leaders of the business can make an informed decision having considered all our views.

If you came to work for Lush because you believe in our values, through the EBT,
you can have reassurance that these values will never be diluted or changed without our staff being consulted.

Karl Bygrave • LUSH DIRECTOR • COMPANY APPOINTED EBT TRUSTEE