Can Biotech Invent a Sustainable Future for the Beauty Industry? | Jasmina Aganovic | TEDxBoston

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When it comes to beauty brands and products these days, many people look for “natural” or plant-derived ingredients. There are a lot of assumptions made about what this means, both in terms of product performance and environmental impact. During this talk, Jasmina will challenge those assumptions by using examples that show that chemical-based harvesting from nature (rooster combs, mono-crop palm oil, and rose) is not necessarily sustainable or ethical.

As a counterpoint, she’ll offer biology as a likely solution to existing ingredient sourcing methods which can deliver higher sophistication and new dimensions of performance, ethically and sustainably. In the process, she’ll demystify the fear quotient around biotechnology (it is already part of many things we use each day) and GMOs. Although not a panacea, biotech for beauty is poised to offer scalability, efficacy, and transparency within the industry. And, even more exciting, products based on biotech can access the whole tree of life - not just the plants and animal sources available for extraction right now. Molecules allow us to unlock the creative power of biology, without damaging the natural world.

In one sentence, what is the key takeaway that you want the audience to know or feel after hearing this talk?

We can use biology as a design tool to change how we think about ourselves and the world around us.