The Ethique Foundation

As well as working on start-ups, West has established the Ethique Foundation, which launched in early April after nine years in the making.

Based at Ethique’s Otautahi ¯ HQ in Christchurch, the foundation has earmarked $10m — 2 per cent of Ethique’s sales — to donate to non-profit groups focused on contributing to a healthier planet and a fairer world, through innovation and regeneration.

Its immediate focus will be donating funds to organisations working on ocean conservation, and in July it will launch the Ethique Fellowship, a year-long programme to provide women with financial, educational and network assistance “to support them as they create impactful change with scalable business ideas”.

West says the goal was always to have a stand-alone, independently operated philanthropic arm to Ethique that donated funds to organisations helping the planet. She settled on donating to ocean conservation because of her personal passion for the sea and marine biology, and the fact that it is “incredibly important to planetary health”.

“The overarching goal is to drive the planet forward and protect 30 per cent of the oceans by 2030, which is a huge initiative, created and championed by a bunch of non-profits. One of our big keystone charities is Mission Blue, who have been championing that for a long time.”

West says Ethique had “inspired a bit of a movement within the cosmetics industry”, encouraging mainstream brands to release solid product bars in the past 12 months. “That is testament to the fact that consumers are demanding better options, and that’s where I see Ethique’s biggest impact.

“Yes we want to save half a billion plastic bottles by 2030, yes that’s a big impact, but what’s a much bigger impact is if we change the industry and inspire other brands to do better and offer consumers more, and show brands it can be done.”