Notes from FLSCC Countdown 2 Sustainability at the Kennedy Space Center

On September 10 our founder Natalie Vaulin spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center for the FLSCC Countdown 2 Sustainability Forum. Talks in the morning, supplier tables through lunch, speed networking in the afternoon, dinner under the Saturn V.

Three things stayed with us.

"Natural" is not the top of the ladder

Chemyunion opened the day with a feedstock pyramid. Fossil-based at the bottom. First-generation naturals in the middle, and the slide was blunt about why they sit there: conventional processes and competition with food crops. The top belongs to upcycled side-streams.

That order is uncomfortable for anyone whose brand story ends at the word natural. Chemyunion put numbers on their butyl oleate route: 62% lower greenhouse gas for the butanol compared with the fossil alternative, and 0.5 kg CO2 eq per kg of product. Those are figures presented by the supplier at the conference, not our measurements. Ask for the same in writing before any of it reaches your label.

Sustainability has metrics, not adjectives

The strongest slide of the morning paired every green-chemistry lever with the number that proves it. Milder conditions, biocatalysis around 30 C instead of reflux, measured as energy and PMI. Solvent strategy, measured as E-factor. Energy efficiency in kWh per kg. Waste designed out, measured as atom economy.

Useful test for your next supplier call: when someone says an ingredient is greener, ask which of those numbers moved and by how much.

The middle column belongs to the factory

One slide split the eco profile of a finished product into three columns: what the supplier contributes, what gets optimized in the finished goods, and what the consumer is nudged to do. The middle column is a contract manufacturer's job. Cold process instead of heat. A shorter ingredient list. Waterless formats.

Those are decisions made on the production floor, months before anyone writes a word on the carton.

The rest of the day

The panel on the decisions behind beauty brands had founders and a chemist on stage, moderated by Celia Shatzman of Forbes. An astronaut talk in the early afternoon, then a room full of supplier tables with samples you could pick up and rub in. Dinner at the Apollo Saturn V Center, under the rocket.

If you were there, we would like to compare notes. Tell us what you took away.

The day in pictures

Our founder Natalie Vaulin with astronaut Don Thomas at the Kennedy Space Center.

The Rocket Garden, before the morning sessions.

The astronaut talk in the early afternoon.

The panel on stage: founders and a chemist, moderated by Celia Shatzman of Forbes.

Meet the panel: Maggie Spicer, Ramón Pagán, Julio Pina, with Celia Shatzman moderating.

The feedstock pyramid: fossil-based at the bottom, upcycled side-streams at the top.

Selection criteria for an improved eco profile, split across supplier, finished goods and consumer.

Metrics of green chemistry: PMI, E-factor, kWh per kg, atom economy.

Replace the reaction with biology: the biocatalysis worked example.

Supplier tables through lunch. Biomimetic peptides, with the claims printed next to the jars.

Samples you could pick up and rub in.

The Apollo firing room.

Dinner at the Apollo Saturn V Center.

Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Working with us

Vaulabs is a contract manufacturer and R&D house for clean beauty in Clearwater, Florida. Custom formulation and benchmark matching, production from 5,000 units per SKU, an FDA-registered and NSF-certified facility (NSF/ANSI 455-2, certificate C0681369-HSCDS-5).

Most brands come to us at the point where a nice formula is not enough and the documentation has to hold up for a retailer. If that is where you are, tell us what you are making and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right plant for it.