For our new interview series in association with Investec, we bring you the stories of business leaders who are driving British brands built on purpose and passion. As a company founded by entrepreneurs, Investec is shining a light on luxury marques within the Walpole family who share a mission to disrupt the status quo of their sectors, and what makes the mindset of the entrepreneurs behind these values-driven companies unique.
For our first instalment in the series, we speak to Anabel Kindersley, Co-Owner of holistic beauty brand Neal’s Yard Remedies…
Flowers, roots, and bees: these are all pivotal to Anabel Kindersley, Co-Owner of Neal’s Yard Remedies. These crucial elements of the natural world not only form the product she sells, but are vital to the sustainability of our planet. To Kindersley, the purpose and business strategy behind Neal’s Yard Remedies are inseparable.
The company was founded by schoolteacher Romy Fraser in 1981, initially as a single shop in London’s Covent Garden offering natural health and beauty products. Kindersley, her husband Barnabas, and father-in-law Peter, were loyal customers who became its owners in 2005.
They’ve upheld the company’s original ethos: organic, natural, pesticide-free, cruelty-free products, crafted at Peacemarsh, their eco-friendly factory in Dorset. Flowers are grown and harvested from the nearby fields, and in the factory they are dried and processed into creams, supplements and tinctures and bottled up in the brand’s distinctive blue glass. Every bottle features the company’s circular tree logo which gives the roots and the branches equal space, representing their holistic, integrated approach.
“I think we have swum against the tide for 18 years as a business. I don’t see that’s the case anymore, because the tide has turned. We are at the front of the wave,” she says. “If we’d have gone out there to make loads of profit, I think we would have had a completely different business model, probably. And that wasn’t the aim, ever.”
Businesses today face immense pressure from customers and the staff to adopt environmentally conscious practices. Neal’s Yard Remedies provides a lesson in how important it is to embed this approach.
Kindersley emphasises the alignment of financial and environmental sustainability. Her biggest financial lesson was realising the power of a “seed to bottle” approach, where the business controls, understands and invests in every element of its supply chain around the world.
“We started a nursery in Oman to grow frankincense trees from saplings, and we won't be the beneficiaries. We were worried about over-harvesting, so we created an outreach program. It wasn't for our own benefit because it takes about 10 years for them to come to fruition.” This foresight has the side-effect of creating lasting partnerships, especially important when Frankincense trees are threatened by climate change, and communities who harvest them are threatened by poverty.
“We help communities in the areas where we grow those ingredients. We committed to farming yields the year ahead, so they could buy a solar panel for their water tank,” she says.
As well as managing a £40 million a year enterprise with dozens of shops around the UK, Kindersley is a political activist who campaigns against the use of pesticides. Again, she says this work also can’t be split from her work on the business. Without bees, wasps and other pollinators to fertilise the flowers her business sells, it simply wouldn’t be viable. “If we just take out the pollinators and just carry on using pesticides without any kind of reduction target, we would be in a situation where we’ll be transporting bees around the world to pollinate our vegetables and fruit,” she says. “That doesn’t make sense.”
She’s observing a change of thinking in the business world towards sustainable practices. “I've really noticed a fundamental shift, that if we're going to change the dial on climate change and biodiversity, we have to work together and collaboration is key,” she says.
That collaboration is seen in the 105 companies and organisations which have signed up to her #StandByBees coalition, including L’Occitane, Holland & Barrett, and Yeo Valley Organic. Together the group has been challenging UK government authorisation of certain pesticides.
“I suddenly feel I’ve got 105 amazing allies who I can call on, and who I do call,” she says. “We’re all together trying to fight this, and protect the environment for the future.”
Kindersley credits her environmentally-conscious upbringing for her passion. “My parents were very much hippies. My middle name is Venus, actually,” she says, laughing. Kindersley also references Silent Earth, an influential book by professor Dave Goulson, which warns of a looming insect apocalypse. “One teaspoon of the pesticide neonicotinoid is enough to kill a one and a quarter billion bees,” she says. “We’ve already lost 60% of our flying insects.”
She says her long term goal is growing environmental awareness among her customers and to establish Neal’s Yard Remedies as a beacon for biodiversity, championing this cause not from market demand, but from genuine conviction. She deeply believes in a business that gives back. “It’s about moral conviction.” she says. “You can’t just think of yourself, in life. My instinct is it’s not just about us, it’s about future generations.”
“We were the first carbon neutral retailer in 2008. Marketing directors would say, ‘what do we need that for? No-one cares about that when they’re buying their face cream,’” she says. This authenticity defines Kindersley and her brand. “We didn’t set out to position ourselves this way. This is who we are. And we’re not afraid to say it.”
Despite her demanding role, Kindersley understands the importance of a good work-life balance, although she admits this is work in progress. “I go to bed thinking about the business. Sometimes I dream about it. I wake up in the morning thinking about it. But I run a wellbeing brand and I am a natural health practitioner, so I do find a way to balance it.”
“On the way to work today I passed a garden which had so many passion flowers in bloom, and there were all these pollinators, bees, wasps, and I stopped. And I stood there looking at that for a while. If I'm open to looking up at the trees and being aware of nature around me, it definitely restores me,” she says.
“So while I haven't got the perfect work life balance, I do feel that nature is very restorative for me.” For Kindersley, and Neal’s Yard Remedies, everything about their business comes back to the health of the flowers, the roots, and the bees.
> To find out more about the Investec partnership with Walpole or to discover how the Investec team helps entrepreneurs achieve their own version of success, email Investec at [email protected]
