Rituals Founder & CEO, Raymond Cloosterman met with TRBusiness’ Faye Bartle at the 2024 TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.

Wellbeing beauty brand Rituals is accelerating its ambition to become an impact-driven brand with its Profit Pledge initiative, which commits 10% of the company’s net profits to causes that care for people and the planet, starting from 2025.

Profit Pledge will see Rituals donating an expected EUR300-400 million during the initiative’s first decade, to selected causes.

The first to benefit will be a reforestation project in Colombia, through conservation enterprise Sacred Forests, and a mental resilience app for children called Super Chill.

“Sustainability is incredibly important for everybody,” Rituals Founder and CEO, Raymond Cloosterman told TRBusiness.

“We are very proud that we became one of the first brands in luxury beauty to become B Corp certified [in 2021] and that’s a journey we are building on.”

From refining its formulas to introducing a refill movement, plus much more, Rituals has been working hard to limit its negative impact on the planet. Now, the company wants to take this a step further by focusing on creating a positive impact.

“A new dream is not only to one day be a luxury brand in wellbeing but also to be seen as an impact brand,” explained Cloosterman.

This is how the idea for Profit Pledge was born.

“For me, success comes with responsibility,” he said. “Of course, we are focused on the top line. We want to grow. Of course, we are focused on profitability, because the continuity of the company is priority number one. But why can’t you combine those two with impact and investing something back?

“Managing these is, for me, a new challenge as an entrepreneur and that is what we are going to try to do.”

The Rituals stand at the 2024 TFWA World Exhibition in Cannes.

Profit Pledge was announced internally at the company this summer with Cloosterman saying employees feel motivated by the initiative.

With regards to shoppers, he said: “We are going to see how consumers will react. I don’t think they will buy more because we do this. But I do think in the long run they expect this from us, so it’s also to help make the brand stronger.”

Profit Pledge will be something of a ‘background’ project that’s shared with consumers in subtle ways.

“In the end, we want them to come for our products because of the quality of the fragrances – and they should feel assured in terms of sustainability, with B Corp certification and with our pledge, that we are taking responsibility in the background as well.”

The causes that have been selected to benefit from Profit Pledge are the result of a search for “projects of hope”.

Sacred Forests is an organisation dedicated to the reforestation of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta rainforest in Colombia.

Rituals sponsors an indigenous rainforest community in the country, with the aim of helping them to reclaim their land and protect their forest for generations to come.

Together with Sacred Forests, 200,000 hectares of land and biodiversity are now earmarked for protection.

Supporting the mental wellbeing of children is also a driving factor, with a UNICEF analysis showing that an estimated 166 million adolescents globally are experiencing mental disorders, striking a chord with Cloosterman.

This is why Rituals has co-founded and is the exclusive sponsor of Super Chill, a free app that provides kids and caretakers with tools to help build mental resilience.

It features playful exercises around mindfulness, breathwork, yoga and more to help teach children how to keep a positive and healthy mindset. The goal is to reach 10 million children through the app.

Rituals will also continue to support Tiny Miracles, an organisation it co-founded to provide income, healthcare and education support to communities in Mumbai.

“My dream is to build a global luxury brand with a different perspective on beauty. We are here to make you feel good and that’s the wellbeing aspect of our brand promise.” – Rituals Founder and CEO, Raymond Cloosterman.

“We want to contribute to the bigger picture and take responsibility as a company,” said Cloosterman.

“We are learning to do better every single day. The culture we’ve created for the company is to never lose our entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s that spirit which compels us to take action not because others tell us to do so, but because we intrinsically believe in doing the right thing.”

Travel retail business “impressive and important”

On top of sustainability being a key focus, Rituals is placing its efforts on further developing its business in Asia and attracting new generations to the brand.

“Rituals is doing very well. The brand is on fire across Europe and growing very fast in Germany, France and the UK especially, which is amazing,” said Cloosterman.

“We are growing this year by more than 20%, from EUR1.7 billion to hopefully EUR2 billion turnover this year, so that’s a big growth.

“This is mainly due to opening stand-alone stores, and every day we are opening two kiosks somewhere in the world at airports or department stores.

“But the biggest driver of growth is like-for-like growth, so the stores growing – not because of price increases but because of volume and that has been, I would say, completely backed up by our store innovation programme.

“We are bringing 200 products every year, keeping the brand young and relevant and that’s really helping.”

The relaunched Rituals of Sakura line has attracted more Gen Z consumers to the brand.

Building on its success in Europe, Rituals made a big move into Asia in 2023. Among the recent openings is a store in Tokyo (on the domestic market).

“By the end of the year we will have about 40 stores in the region, as the beginning hopefully of a new chapter in our journey,” said Cloosterman. “The initial response has been extremely good, so we are very hopeful.”

The role that travel retail plays in the growth of the business is described as “impressive and important”.

“Travel retail plays a crucial role,” he said. “We need to be discovered at the airports. We need to service people who are travelling at airports, and we need to be in airlines, hotel rooms and cruise liners.

“Since day one, when we founded the company 24 years ago, we’ve been looking for partnerships [in this space] as they are important.

“The good news is that the brand is growing very fast in travel retail and that has everything to do with the great performance and the opening, of course, of new outlets.”

The overall mission for the brand is to take it from its beauty and mindfulness positioning to being a leader in the luxury wellbeing space.

To support this, the company is innovating at a product level and creating relevant content, such as The Book of Rituals. Plus, it’s carving a niche for itself with the launch of wellbeing services available at the Mind Oasis, from the mentally relaxing Brain Massage to the immersive sound and vibration fuelled Breathing Bubble experience.

Cloosterman sees a big need in travel for wellbeing services that help relax passengers and unwind the mind.

“We are experimenting with that in our House of Rituals and maybe one day we can even take it to airports,” he said.

“In travel retail there is always this paradox. All the trend analysts are sure you need more experiences at airports and at the same time we try to manage every square millimetre in terms of profitability – and that doesn’t go hand in hand.

“So airports, maybe together with operators, I think have to be brave or be clear whether they want to pursue this challenge to bring more experiences, as we are ready for it. The industry needs to be ready too.”

Travel retail plays a “crucial role” in Rituals’ business.

Another key focus for the company is to keep on catering to the younger generation of Zoomers and enticing Gen Z to become loyal fans of the brand.

This year’s relaunch of the Ritual of Sakura is a case in point, which has successfully driven new audiences to the brand and into the sores, says Cloosterman.

Combined with the company’s focus on gifting, luxury skincare and EDPs, and now with its Profit Pledge, Rituals is well-placed to achieve its goals.

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