Corporate & Social Responsibilities

The JNSLABS Benefit Corporation: Our Promise to Balance Purpose and Profit

JNS LABS is committed to supporting an inclusive and sustainable benefit economy. As a Benefit Corporation, our company promises to balance purpose and profit. We firmly believe businesses should benefit everyone. We have adopted development, production and distribution practices leaving a small footprint on the environment, sourcing ingredients and production locally, and striving for employment equity and pay parity for women. In developing countries, government policies and ingrained cultural biases often hamper efforts to protect the environment and ensure social inclusion. More companies like JNSLABS are embracing the B-economy, where the focus is on the well-being of people rather than profits for the few. 

Countries in Central Asia, for example in Uzbekistan, are step by step liberalizing policies and recognizing how empowering women as employees and entrepreneurs benefits everyone—their families and the communities where they live.

What is a benefit corporation?

Benefit Corporations are a new kind of business that balances purpose over profit. They are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers, community and the environment. This is a community of leaders, driving global movement of people using business as a force for good.

B Corporations Declaration of Interdependence

  • That we must be the change we seek in the world.
  • That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered.
  • That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all.
  • To do so requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.

Source: www.bcorporation.net

A Deloitte consumer products industry outlook report noted that “Consumers are more knowledgeable about existing global issues such as food security, food and product safety, global sustainability, global pandemics, and third-world malnutrition. Unlike governments that are limited in scope, global companies can transcend borders to address these issues on a global scale.”

Source: Deloitte: 2020 Consumer Products Industry Outlook

Research by the New York University Stern Center for Sustainable Business found that products marketed as sustainable grew 5.6x faster than products not marketed as sustainable and represented 50 percent of the market growth.

Source: Sustainable Share Index™: Research on IRI Purchasing Data (2013 -2018)
Randi Kronthal-Sacco and Tensie Whelan, March 11, 2019

How do JNSLABS support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals?

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by member states of the United Nations, identified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “for ending poverty and other deprivations to improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.” The SDGs are clearly supported by a B-economy, which shares overlapping goals with the UN 2030 agenda.

  • Transitioning towards long-term decarbonized and sustainable development that maximizes positive human impacts, equalizes opportunities among social groups and women and men, and minimizes environmental degradation is essential.
  • Eradicating poverty and other deprivations, enhancing human capabilities, reducing inequalities, fostering peace, reversing the degradation of the planet, and strengthening the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
  • Accelerating progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals for women and girls would empower half the world’s population, and significantly close remaining gaps in achievement.

Source: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/24797GSDR_report_2019.pdf

How important is corporate transparency to consumers and brand viability?

The Accenture Stratety 14th Annual Global Pulse Research report, based on an extensive survey, concluded that “Consumers’ expanded roles make them highly valuable stakeholders in an extended brand ecosystem. They insist on transparency at the corporate level, as well as about the products, services and promises they find meaningful. They reward principles such as family connections, health, security, sustainability or respect for religious beliefs.” Among surveyed respondents, “62 percent of consumers thought transparency was one of a brand’s most attractive qualities.”

Source: To Affinity and Beyond https://www.accenture.com

JNSLABS places transparency front and center. The product line ingredients are mainly sourced from nature and are free from harmful chemicals. All the ingredients for the health and hygiene products are listed on the product label and on our website. Each of the products is independently certified as safe and natural by JNSLABS professionals in France.

What manufacturing innovations support environmental sustainability?

Experts in industry and economics are calling the new digitalization of services and production Industry 4.0—the fourth industrial revolution. Importantly, Industry 4.0, first conceptualized in Germany, enables businesses to embrace sustainability because of the reduced carbon footprint as is the case with the new Plug and Produce factories. New modules can be added based on the Plug and Play concept. These smart factories are more efficient and more flexible, necessary to quickly adjust to market shifts and to developing new products.

JNSLABS is forwarded looking as a sustainable development company, recognizing the connection between Industry 4.0 innovations and a circular economy. The company’s packaging is minimal, recycled materials and reduced printing on the boxes, and the product bottles are PET sourced from local suppliers.

As defined in Industry 4.0: Empowering ASEAN for the Circular Economy, “The circular economy is an umbrella term used for industrial processes and business models that do not generate waste but instead reuse natural resources repeatedly.” Start-ups and small and medium-sized industries not hampered by a legacy business have the best opportunities to leverage smart manufacturing and sustainable practices in support of a circular economy.

Source: Industry 4.0: Empowering ASEAN for the Circular Economy

Why is global investment essential in developing countries? 

Investments by global companies like JNSLABS provide opportunities for developing countries to shift to a market economy, to empower its people. As a sustainable development company, our industry is designed from the ground up as valuing inclusion and sustainability and supporting the UN2030 agenda. The JNSLABS company and its product line focus on the health and well-being of people, tapping natural resources responsibly and fostering local talent and entrepreneurship.

The Central Asian region is comprised of five post-Soviet countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Urbanization is expected to increase dramatically in these countries. The World Data projection for urban population growth by 2050 will be over 50% for Central Asian countries. A shift from a predominately agricultural-rural workforce to a more global, urban market-driven one brings both challenges and opportunities.

Source: https://ourworldindata.org

Clearly, access to affordable health and hygiene products is limited even more with the increase of the products prices. JNSLABS addressed this problem by locating its Plug and Produce factory in Central Asia. Without the added costs of import taxes and distribution, localized production makes it possible for people to buy high-quality products essential to their health and well-being in difficult times.

How does JNSLABS empower communities in developing countries?

  • Localized smart manufacturing: JNSLABS opened the very first Plug and Produce factory in Central Asia - in Uzbekistan. It participates to the industrialization and allows a transfer of know-how.
  • Promotion of hygiene to protect communities: JNSLABS donates hygiene products to schools, families, and trains women and children about the most effective way to use them. Our free hygiene education program targets schools, hospitals and children's health centers.
  • Equity in employment and pay parity for women: The JNSLABS goal is to hire an equal number of men and women. JNSLABS women employees are paid the same wages as their male counterparts.
  • Trainings for women business entrepreneurs in Central Asia: JNSLABS conducts free training for women in Central Asia interested in starting their own businesses.