Iconic London

About Iconic London

Iconic London is a fast-growing UK based cosmetics company headquartered in London. Founded in 2015, the company has scaled from 15 to 40 employees, and now has an international customer base and supply chain. Iconic London has built a brand around unique, trend led formulations and skin finishing products which give a glamourous glow that is loved by professional makeup artists, celebrities, and influencers.

The business is based on an active and engaged social media following, leveraging digital marketing to fuel a strong growth trajectory. In 2018, Bluegem Capital Partners, an experienced consumer-focused private equity firm purchased Iconic London to further support the business to scale into new geographies. Most recently this has included the United States, one of the largest cosmetics markets in the world, and where they now have a subsidiary company to support international operations.

Iconic London was faced with many different ESG reporting and regulatory demands

As is often the case with consumer brands, Iconic London has a lot of different stakeholders and interested parties which results in a broad range of regulatory reporting requirements. This includes everything from the Plastics Packaging Tax in the UK, to managing the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and ESG Data Convergence Initiative (EDCI) reporting requirements for their investors, Bluegem Capital Partners, and delivering full Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emission reporting for some of their largest customers. Additionally, Iconic London is a PETA certified vegan and cruelty free brand, so must work to maintain this accreditation alongside new product development.

Alice Byrom-Chadd, the Finance Business Partner and Ann Masson, CFO, were aware that the companies' ambitious growth plans, and future regulatory requirements, such as IFRS S1 and S2 would need to be supported with effective data management that could create transparency around sustainability. With this in mind, they were looking to formalise the business’ ESG reporting process and publish an external corporate sustainability report. This move towards more robust reporting processes was also driven by one of their largest customers asking them to provide carbon emissions data and consider a commitment to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Alice Byrom-Chadd said: “Being asked for Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions and a SBTi commitment by one of our largest customers has acted as a catalyst to put effective and accurate reporting processes in place for all our ESG data.”

Establishing an effective data management process is especially necessary since Iconic London has complex international supply chains with long lead times. As well as being faced with the difficulties of inconsistent data availability; as some of their suppliers have robust reporting systems and excellent data to hand, whilst others do not, and needed guidance in how to begin collecting and reporting such figures.

KEY ESG’s platform enables quick and efficient carbon and ESG data management

Following a comprehensive onboarding call with the other Bluegem portfolio companies, Ann and Alice began using the platform, starting with the carbon data as their top priority.

Ann Masson, CFO, said: “Using KEY ESG to establish a process around carbon reporting has been really helpful.

"The platform provides detailed guidance on where to find the data and turns what seems like an overwhelming process into small, achievable steps.”

Iconic London required some detailed understanding of relevant secondary emissions factors for cosmetic products which the KEY ESG team were happy to provide guidance for in their scheduled follow up Q&A sessions. They have now established a working group within the company to manage the Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon accounting using the KEY ESG platform and are on track to deliver the requested corporate-level spend-based emissions data for their customer by the deadline.

In addition, the KEY ESG platform has helped Iconic to centralise their ESG data and source documents and enabled Iconic London to meet Bluegem’s reporting requirements under the SFDR and EDCI.

Ann Masson said: “Having the KEY ESG platform to work with instead of various Excel sheets is making a big difference. Not only that, but the level of support and knowledge of the team at KEY ESG has been a huge help in accelerating our ESG journey.

"KEY ESG understands the nuances of our business and has made it simpler for us to take the first step.”

Iconic London achieve their investor’s benchmark and starts developing SBTi targets for the future

The Iconic London team are proud to have met the ESG benchmark set by their investors, Bluegem Capital Partners, but they have ambitious targets to further refine their ESG processes and performance. They are working towards building their first external corporate sustainability report, completing a carbon inventory, and developing their first SBTi commitment. This will put them in a strong position to deliver on their sustainability ambitions and serve customer demands as they continue to scale into new markets globally. KEY ESG is excited to partner with Iconic London on their sustainability journey.