Atomy Starts Sustainability Management

Blue Marine, Atomy's eco-friendly project, has anchored toward the blue sea. Blue Marine is a series of activities that range from developing eco-friendly products to collecting eco-friendly ideas through global contests. In particular, Atomy plans to inform its sustainable management through various activities, such as a campaign in which Blue Marine supporters and members collect plastic Atomy bottles and get rewarded for upcycling products. In addition, Atomy plans to reduce plastics in the product package by more than 50% within the next two years and renew all subsidiary materials of its products as eco-friendly subsidiary materials. The use of eco-friendly bioplastics and the development of alternatives will also be carried out with emphasis.

Are you interested in purchasing the Blue Marine Campaign packages?

If the Blue Marine Campaign is applied to the products being released, it is inevitable that the price will increase, the material will change, and the colors will be limited. Are you still willing to buy eco-friendly products despite some inconveniences?

Yes. 93.7%

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Reducing the Packaging and Replacing it with Eco-Friendly Materials

ESG Management is a Hot Topic. ESG stands for environment, social, and governance. Although social contribution activities have been widely known, eco-friendly activities have received relatively less attention. However, Atomy's eco-friendly activities have been steadily progressed. It is mainly to improve packaging and containers of products in an eco-friendly manner. These include changing double-layered cosmetics containers into single-layered containers, reducing product packaging, removing plastic coating on boxes, and changing the box handles of set products to assembly type. 

Boxes of 21 products, including Sun Cushion, Silk Protein Hair Essence, and Cerabebe, were changed to boxes without plastic coating, while four cosmetics containers, including The Fame, Acne Clear, Calming Skin, and Again Serum, were changed from double containers to single containers. In addition, the box handle for seven products, including Organic Onion Juice, Good Crispy Rice Crust, and Squeezed Grapefruit Juice, were removed, and the plastic container of Slim Body Shake was changed to a pouch.

In particular, it recently established Eco-friendly Smart Packaging Solution with a delivery company, CJ Logistics. Also, the buffer materials for delivery boxes and individual packaging materials for product protection have been changed to paper materials, which are 100% recyclable. Tape that is used to produce and enclose boxes is also replaced with paper materials. Through these activities, it has reduced about 230 tons of plastic over the past year.

Increasing Awareness of Members and Employees 

In addition, it is planning a contest to collect ideas related to eco-friendly environment. The goal is to make the earth healthier through creative and ingenious ideas of those who care about the environment. In particular, it is conducting a campaign to discover eco-friendly ideas that can be practiced directly in the company. In April and May, small in-house campaigns, such as hand washing napkin saving campaigns, printout reduction, accurate and smart recycling, sending our message through webtoons, and food waste reduction campaigns have been on the rise, and voluntary participation by employees is also increasing. In addition, it plans to conduct a global eco-friendly contest, Blue Marine supporters activities, and eco-friendly character branding as mid-term tasks to increase global members' awareness and promote eco-friendly culture. Through this, it plans to revitalize eco-friendly activities for each category with the goal of increasing awareness by 1% of the global population, which is equivalent to 100 million members. 

Executives and employees of Atomy are also actively participating in the Blue Marine campaign. In fact, Hwan-Wook Kim, a staff member who likes to use stainless steel straws that do not damage the environment, said, "Although it needs to be washed and creates noise, I recommend this because the environment is more important.” Also, another staff member, Yu-Ri Lim, who won the Blue Marine Action Story award, said, “Thanks to the Blue Marine Campaign, I have been thinking about environmental protection once again.” She added, “Let’s work together toward a zero-waste life that goes beyond recycling and minimizes unnecessary waste.”

Ongoing campaign to promote eco-friendly living for Atomy employees

Heading Towards Zero Plastic

Atomy's eco-friendly policy is heading towards "zero plastic." It is more proactive than recycling, upcycling, and flogging because it is about not using plastic from the production level. To this end, it started developing eco-friendly packages in collaboration with Kolmar. As recently reported in the newspaper, it plans to expand the products to which paper tubes will apply, starting with Hand Therapy and Essence Sun. In addition, Atomy's flagship cosmetics, Absolute set and The Fame set, have replaced the tray inside the box with paper and are currently undergoing delivery tests. Besides that, it is also developing glass containers. It is eco-friendly because glass bottles that can be used for bottle making can be recycled for bottle making and the rest can be recycled for other uses. Atomy is planning to apply it to Hydra Brightening Care products first. In addition, it plans a light package produced to serve as a buffer without a box by applying a pulp mold tray. In the case of light package, it plans to give points as much as the cost reduced by slimming down packaging method. 

Korea uses 132.7 kilograms of plastic per person annually, which is the highest level in the world. Therefore, the act of declaring #PlasticZero and #ZeroWaste on social media means we need to start reducing plastic waste to protect the environment. In fact, without plastic, our daily lives can be inconvenient and costly. But even at the risk of such disadvantages, nature is worth more. Eco-friendliness is not an option but a necessity. Chairman Han-Gil Park said, "Zero plastic means we would bear the inconvenience and cost," and added, "The environment is borrowed from future generations, so we have a duty to return it in its best condition.”

➊ Paper tubes to be applied first to Hand Therapy Essence lines

➋ Glass container that replaces plastic

➌ Light packaging is non-plastic, minimal, eco-friendly and cost-effective package packaging which offers reward for the cost saved

Editor_ Young-Min Lee