Foreword

In 2025, our business, Lush Cosmetics, turned 30 years old.  This presents the perfect opportunity to reflect on three decades of doing what we love – making fresh, handmade, effective cosmetics using the finest natural ingredients to give our customers what they need, and trying to do as much good along the way as we can. At Lush, we all share in an overarching mission to Leave the world Lusher Than We Found It and while we enjoy doing the good things, we also need to take stock on how we are doing; not only to see and celebrate our progress, but also to make sure we keep moving in the right direction and that our resources are being used in the best way.

When Lush became partly employee owned in 2017 through the Lush Employee Benefit Trust, it was important to outline the core values that make Lush the business it is today.  These core values are enshrined in the Lush Ethical Charter – a legal document that defines our minimum standards for each of our ethical principles. These principles should guide the work and the decision making of all employees and involve everyone in making sure they are upheld for many generations to come. In honour of our 30th birthday, it is time to look at how we are performing against these commitments, celebrate our achievements, and look forward.

In this report, each principle of the Ethical Charter has its own section where we have tasked the most appropriate people in our business to take you on this journey and leave you with a better understanding of the history of each principle, highlights (and lowlights) from the past 30 years and the latest facts and figures to demonstrate how we are upholding each of these core values and holding ourselves to account.

The Lush Ethos, the Employee Benefit Trust and our Ethical Charter

We believe in “happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on the products and making our mums proud”. This shared pride drives the loyalty and trust that colleagues and customers place in Lush, creating bonds rarely seen in business.

In 1995, Lush was created in a small town called Poole on the south coast of England by six co-founders; Mo Constantine, Mark Constantine, Rowena Bird, Helen Ambrosen, Liz Bennett and Paul Greeves. Emerging from the demise of a previous mail order business called Cosmetics To Go – a massive success that collapsed through a combination of over-trading and flooding – it was the same team that created and inspired this new venture called Lush. Right at the beginning, while building Lush and still learning from the collapse of Cosmetics To Go, the co-founders created our We Believe Statement reflecting their beliefs in what they wanted this business to be. These statements represented the thought and care that went into our beliefs and have become the integral foundation of the company. As it has grown, the pool of people responsible for upholding our beliefs has grown too.

Many join Lush because we align to their personal values and world view. Over 30 years, we’ve evolved into a diverse ecosystem where different perspectives are not just welcomed, but celebrated. Our greatest strength lies in creating a safe, inclusive environment, where this diverse group can find a place in the tapestry of Lush and forge a role that has personal value and meaning, whilst contributing to the whole.

Since 2017, the Lush Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) has served as the guardian of our core values through the Lush Ethical Charter. There are certain values or principles we regard as so core to our philosophy that they should not be changed without proper consideration and consultation. In order to protect these standards, we needed them to be written down and defined which prompted the creation of our Ethical Charter. Through the Lush EBT we ensure that decisions are not made which may breach or materially affect our ethical practice without first taking the views of our colleagues across all Lush Group companies into account.  This also allows for all staff to be thoroughly briefed about the issues behind any major proposed changes so that they can make a meaningful contribution to that decision and the leaders of the business can make an informed decision having considered everyone’s views.

The Ethical Charter is split between our core values — those that are never going to change and will always remain integral to the business — and our evolving values which are equally fundamental but have the ability to be defined differently over time with changing knowledge and technology. The Ethical Charter governs how we think about these policies, but we may evolve how we choose to address them.

As we face an ever-changing world, we all — colleagues, customers, and stakeholders — expect Lush to innovate and adapt while raising, never lowering, our ethical standards. This report demonstrates how we’re living up to that expectation, measuring our progress against the principles that make Lush who we are.

To understand our ethics, it is also important to understand our business structure and influence. This helps not only to provide context, but also allows us to compare how our impact measures against our size, and therefore the power we have to wield.

In FY2024, Lush operated in 52 countries across six continents. Of these 52 countries, 27 countries (or ‘markets’) are considered group markets and 25 were partner markets. A group market is wholly owned and operated by Lush whereas Partners are owned by an external business or person who has invested money, time and expertise to develop the Lush brand within their own market. These are controlled and operated by the Partners — following our best practice guidelines — and pay royalties as a percentage of all sales they make in their market, in exchange for using the Lush Brand. We also receive license fees when we open in a new market, or when a market renews their license. These are usually granted for 10 years and some of our Partners are on their third license renewal! We have even seen some succession where the business is now operated by a second generation, for example, our Croatia and Finland Partners are now operated by the sons of the original licensee. If Lush Limited (the Group market) has a share in these Partner businesses, we also enjoy a share of their profits.

We had manufacturing facilities in 6 countries, located in Poole UK, Dusseldorf Germany, Zagreb Croatia, Vancouver and Toronto in Canada, Tokyo Japan and Sydney Australia. To support these facilities, and ensure our customers receive the freshest possible products, we also have Fresh Kitchens in 12 countries who make our ultra-fresh products such as fresh face masks, fresh cleansers and eye pads among others. Sadly, we made the decision in 2024 to close our German manufacturing facility and de-scale our operations in Vancouver. However, we had 869 permanent shops across the Lush globe, which is 12 more than FY2023, 666 of which were in group markets. We opened our biggest store, Glasgow City, in the UK in March 2024. We also had 48 digital businesses for our customers to order online. Across manufacturing, retail, digital and support teams, we employed 13,614 people in our group markets.

In FY2024 we had a turnover of £690 million for our group markets, but made an EBITDA loss of £6.9 million. EBITDA is the measure of a company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation. We like to use this measurement as it gives us as close as possible indication of the actual underlying performance of our business, before any complex non-cash accounting adjustments are made. You can find more information in our FY2024 Audited Accounts.