FAQ

sustainability

Marcel's Green Soap emerged from the idea of creating a cleaner world. We achieve this by offering sustainable laundry, cleaning, and personal care products for the light green consumer. Until a few years ago, as a light green consumer, you had limited choices at the supermarket: an affordable 'gray' product or an expensive but environmentally friendly 'dark green' alternative. Often, people would opt for the gray and cheaper option. The willingness to make greener choices was there, but without too many compromises. Marcel saw an opportunity in this. The assortment now includes 74 products in 9 different categories. All of them are sustainable, pleasantly scented, and beneficial for your home, skin, and hair. In this way, we are gradually conquering, or rather, transforming the supermarket shelves. Not to maximize profits but to increase impact. Because the shelves need to become greener!

For Marcel, it's not only important to find the best ingredients for his soaps but also that the packaging is not harmful to the planet. That's why all products come in a plastic-free package or in a bottle made of 100% recycled plastic. Moreover, refills are available for most products, helping us all save a lot of plastic.

Certainly! In our Soap Academy, we share a lot of handy tips and tricks for washing and cleaning as sustainably as possible.

It's true that we use raw materials from abroad. Quite simply: salt, coconut oil, soybean oil, and most essential oils do not come from the Netherlands. So, it's not realistic to expect that a product - any product - is made exclusively from Dutch ingredients. Marcel's Green Soap has close contact with all raw material suppliers to determine which ingredients go into our products. All raw materials must have multiple certifications: sustainably grown, vegan, non-GMO. Together with the suppliers, with whom we have close contact, we create a recipe based on these raw materials.

First things first: behind the scenes, we are working hard to make as many products palm oil-free as possible. Why? More and more rainforests are being cleared for palm oil plantations, with all the negative consequences for the animals living there. We believe this needs to and can change. Part of our range is already palm oil-free, but unfortunately, this is not (yet) possible for some products. We closely monitor this so that we can make adjustments when possible. So, some products still contain components of palm oil. Our suppliers of palm and coconut oil components are all certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as sustainable palm oil suppliers. This supports the growth of sustainable palm and coconut oil products. RSPO is the only organization actively working on sustainable palm oil products. Organizations such as WWF, Greenpeace, and Oxfam Novib are also members of this organization. More information can be found on rspo.org.

Yes, certainly. We have several certificates for our products. You can find out which ones and what they stand for on this page: Certificates.

There is a big difference between sustainable and natural. Natural is not always sustainable, and vice versa. For example, we mainly use synthetic instead of natural fragrances. Natural fragrances often require extracting a relatively large amount of raw materials from the earth. With our synthetic fragrances, this is not necessary. Additionally, synthetic fragrances provide more control over biodegradability, allergens, and quality. Natural fragrances can be contaminated, causing a product to smell different or less pleasant. We don't want that. With synthetic fragrances, the experience and quality are always consistent. We prefer to create a product with synthetic components that is environmentally friendly and pleasant to use rather than a natural product that doesn't work well or has a less appealing scent, leading to poor sales. That way, we still miss our goal!

All our products are free of microplastics. Marcel's tip: Scan your products with the Beat the Microbead app. This way, you always know if your product is free of microplastics!

Biodegradability is the process by which organic compounds, meaning substances containing carbon and hydrogen, are broken down by the natural ('biological') activity of microorganisms, among others. All organic compounds in Marcel’s Green Soap products are ultimately 100% biodegradable. However, our products often contain salts. These salts are used for pH balance, dissolving dirt, and also to thicken the products. Salts are not biodegradable, so that's why it's 97%.

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