This month the Union for Ethical BioTrade (UEBT) announced Peruda as a new member. Membership is a starting point rather than an end point: Peruda now has a three-year plan in place, with the goal of having our key botanicals UEBT-verified responsibly sourced when it is complete.
This post explains what UEBT is, why it matters for the ingredients we work with, and what the next three years involve.
What UEBT is
UEBT is a non-profit association that works with companies sourcing ingredients from nature, including for cosmetics, food and natural pharmaceuticals. Its standard sets out how that sourcing should respect both people and biodiversity: protecting the ecosystems ingredients come from, harvesting in ways that allow plants to regenerate, and sharing the benefits fairly with the communities who grow, gather and hold knowledge about them.
Companies that join, commit to working towards the standard over time. Verification comes later, through an independent assessment of how a company actually sources its ingredients, rather than what it says about itself.
Peruda's products carry NATRUE certification, which looks at what goes into a formula. UEBT looks at a different question: where the ingredients come from, and who benefits along the way.
Why it matters for Peruda
Peruda's formulations are built on botanicals from the Amazon: andiroba, pracaxi, tucumã, copaíba, murumuru and cupuaçu. They grow wild and are harvested by communities in the region. The illustration of an andiroba fruit in UEBT's announcement is one of them.
Working with wild-grown plants brings its own responsibility. A plant that has never been cultivated depends on the health of the forest around it, and on the knowledge and work of the people who know where and when to harvest it. Whether those people are paid fairly, whether enough is left for the plant to regenerate, and whether traditional knowledge is recognised rather than simply taken: these questions are settled long before any formulation begins.
Peruda was set up on the principle that a business is responsible for its role across the whole value chain, not only for the part that reaches the customer. UEBT gives that principle a structure: a shared standard, outside scrutiny, and a way of measuring progress that does not depend on our own account of ourselves. It also reflects how supplier relationships are best understood, as something built over years with the people involved.
Why it matters for our customers
Every Peruda product carries a story that a label cannot tell: where its botanicals grew, who harvested them, and how. UEBT membership commits Peruda to learning that story in full, and to improving it wherever that is needed.
For you, it means the care that goes into each formula reaches all the way back to the forest and the communities who harvest there. What you put on your skin is chosen with the same respect for people and nature as for your skin itself.
It also goes beyond any single product. Sourcing that is fair and sustainable helps build a regional bioeconomy: livelihoods that depend on the forest staying healthy and standing. That gives communities the means to regain their role as environmental stewards and protectors of a vital ecosystem. And as climate change affects us all, the way ingredients like these are sourced in the world's largest tropical rainforest matters to everyone, wherever they live.
The next three years
Membership comes with a three-year work plan agreed with UEBT. Broadly, it covers three things: clear processes for how suppliers are chosen and checked, a deeper understanding of the supply chains behind each botanical, and improvements where that work shows they are needed.
Sourcing with respect is not an add-on at Peruda; it is how the business was designed. The first three years will put the building blocks in place for the next steps towards verification.
