Interview with Kenna Whitnell from Altilis Beauty: is natural sustainable?

In this episode, I interviewed Kenna Whitnell, currently a student in the chemistry department at the University of Guelph who has a pretty impressive resume already. She’s an active research scientist working on sustainable plant bioactives, and has her own green beauty company, Altilis Beauty, where she works with different communities in the South Pacific to produce breadfruit ingredients, featured in her products. The focus of our conversation was the following question: is natural cosmetics sustainable? As a pretext for the episode, I just wanted to leave you with the definition of sustainability, defined by the Brundtland Commision from 1987: Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Throughout the conversation, I defined sustainability with respect to the Triple Bottom Line, which is an accounting framework coined by John Elkington in 1994 that looks at sustainability through 3 pillars, social, environmental and financial impacts. Enjoy!