When Horst Rechelbacher founded Aveda in 1978, he established a powerful mission: Care for the Earth and those who live in it. This—among many things—means we never tested our formulas, ingredients or products on our animal friends, never will and would never ask others to do so on our behalf. Nearly 45 years later, we’re expanding our commitment to animal welfare by attaining Leaping Bunny Approval, the gold standard of approval via Cruelty Free International.

A legacy of caring for the earth and its inhabitants

Protecting our planet and its inhabitants is central to our wide-ranging care mission. To live out our mission with integrity, we’ve established priorities in 6 distinctive areas:

• • Safe beauty, responsible sourcing.
• • Responsible packaging.
• • Planet-conscious manufacturing.
• • Helping to provide clean water to people in need globally and protect clean water locally.
• • Producing cruelty-free and vegan formulas.

Although we’ve been cruelty free since 1978, we’re always seeking ways to improve. In 2020, we made the critical decision to become 100% vegan, thereby removing all animal products and by-products from our formulas. Now and forever, all of our formulas are free of ingredients like beeswax and honey, relying instead on high-performing, plant-derived alternatives.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce we’ve achieved Leaping Bunny Approval. This exciting development highlights our pledge to become a more transparent company, plus honors our cruelty-free standards. “Aveda was founded on the principle to care for the world we live in, and this includes always being free of animal testing,” notes Barbara De Laere, Aveda’s Global Brand President. “We have been a leader in sustainability for more than 40 years, and we are proud to underscore this commitment to our planet and inhabitants with our Cruelty Free International Leaping Bunny Approval, the internationally-acclaimed gold standard for cruelty-free cosmetics.”

What it means to be Leaping Bunny Approved

Leaping Bunny Approval under the Leaping Bunny Programme is the most coveted and rigorous cruelty-free beauty certification available. It is attained through Cruelty Free International, the leading organization to end animal experimentation on a global scale. In short, Leaping Bunny Programme forbids animal testing on all levels of a brand’s supply chain through intensive audit reviews.

In order to obtain Leaping Bunny Approval, we submitted to a rigorous audit by Cruelty Free International. This review certified that all Aveda products, raw materials, and ingredients are not tested on animals during any stage of product development and manufacturing. It also required verification that all suppliers and manufacturers comply with Leaping Bunny criteria.

Leaping Bunny Approved-brands must also agree to be independently audited every 12 months, ensuring ongoing compliance, and must recommit to the program annually. These two points are significant differentiators of the Leaping Bunny Programme, making it unique among cruelty-free certifiers. Attaining this certification is a monumental step in our cruelty-free journey—and an exciting milestone in our mission of care.

A more transparent future

Having independent, third-party accountability for our cruelty-free efforts engenders trust, plus ensures our products live up to our high standards. Attaining Leaping Bunny Approval is just one way to become a more transparent organization.

Other transparency efforts include our ingredient sourcing efforts. For example, we use innovative blockchain technology to verify the quality and origin of materials within our Madagascan vanilla sourcing. We ensure ingredient traceability sourcing by having an independent, immutable record of each vanilla bean’s journey. This is just one example of the powerful convergence of our transparency efforts.