Mary Kay Inc. Announces Tree Planting Initiative In Peru In Partnership With The Arbor Day Foundation

LIMA, Peru–(BUSINESS WIRE)–On this World Environment Day, Mary Kay Inc. is proud to announce its commitment to plant 20,000 trees in the Cajamarca and Amazonas regions of Peru by the end of 2020, in collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation. The initiative is part of Mary Kay's global commitment to the Arbor Day Foundation's Evergreen Alliance initiative and its Time for Trees® project, which aims to plant 100 million trees and inspire 5 million tree planters worldwide. around the world by the year 2022. Through this local initiative in Peru, Mary Kay will collaborate with the Arbor Day Foundation in the recovery of areas in the north of the country seriously degraded and deteriorated by traditional agricultural practices.

The Cajamarca and Amazonas regions, in northeastern Peru, are famous for being the epicenter of the country's coffee production. In the last fifteen years, these areas of the Peruvian Amazon region have lost more than 1 million hectares of forest, mainly due to agricultural crops such as coffee and other local crops. Inadequate forest management techniques (eg, cattle grazing, mining, and road construction) have also contributed to the loss of wildlife and native forest habitat. In addition, the fact that these harmful practices continue in the Cajamarca and Amazonas regions prevents the development of sustainable economic growth in local communities. There are methods that could remedy the situation, but they are often beyond the reach of local farmers and cooperatives due to the scarcity of economic resources and technical assistance. The Arbor Day Foundation has set out to address these problems through soil regeneration, reforestation and forest cover management, and the transformation of degraded grasslands into coffee forest production.

“We applaud Mary Kay's commitment to environmental stewardship. Planting trees together with the coffee communities of Peru allows us to invest in local economies and repair and manage a vitally important ecosystem. From supporting fair trade coffee production to sequestering carbon, reforestation in this region will have a positive impact on both local and global communities,” said Dan Lambe, president of the Arbor Day Foundation.

The Arbor Day Foundation and its project partners in the city of Jaén have developed a strategy to address the economic and environmental problems faced by coffee growing communities that depend on this environment to live. In addition to planting trees, the Foundation plans to generate carbon credits from these newly planted forests, which will be a way to contribute to the income of landowners in these valuable areas. The project will offer technical assistance to exercise good agroforestry management practices, calculate carbon sequestration by verified carbon credits, and provide monitoring tools to track progress and growth through the network of participating coffee cooperatives in the regions. of Cajamarca and Amazonas.

“We are excited about the opportunity for Mary Kay to help improve local communities in Peru. Deforestation has been a major environmental concern for years, and although there has been some progress, there is still much to be done to repair one of our most valuable resources: nature," said Sergio Franca, general director of Mary Kay Peru. “Mary Kay has always made a commitment to our customers, employees and independent beauty consultants to be good environmental stewards in every country where we do business. Partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation is one way we fulfill our commitment to help care for our planet."

This project is one of multiple international tree planting commitments that Mary Kay will be supporting in 2020 in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation. Mary Kay's partnership with its Evergreen Alliance initiative marks the first global launch of a strong relationship between Mary Kay and the Arbor Day Foundation. In these ten years of collaboration, Mary Kay has planted 1,000,000 trees in the United States, of which half were planted in Bastrop State Park in Texas due to the fires that devastated the area. In addition to this important reforestation work carried out in the United States, Mary Kay has sponsored the development of 20 Nature Exploration Classrooms to promote contact with nature for more than 31,000 children in shelters for victims of domestic violence from throughout the country, one of the first programs dedicated to this aspect in the country.

Another of the latest measures adopted by Mary Kay Inc. in its commitment to sustainability is its participation in the Sustainable Packaging Initiative for Cosmetics (SPICE) along with 17 other organizations, including Hermès, Chanel, Coty or Estee Lauder. SPICE's goal is to guide sustainable packaging policies, promote packaging innovation and meet consumer expectations for the environmental performance of products. In 2018, the company opened the Richard R. Rogers R&D/Production Center (R3) in Lewisville, Texas, which operates under a “zero waste to landfill” premise and has achieved the prestigious LEED Silver certification. LEED, English acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the most widely used green building rating system in the world and was created by the US Green Building Council (USGBC). To obtain LEED certification, projects must be designed, built, maintained, and operated by a set of healthy, sustainable, and energy-efficient practices.

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About Mary Kay

Mary Kay Ash, one of the first entrepreneurs to break the glass ceiling, founded her beauty products company more than 56 years ago with three clear goals: to provide rewarding opportunities for women, to make irresistible products, and to improve the world. That dream materialized into a multi-million dollar company that has millions of independent beauty consultants in nearly 40 countries. Mary Kay invests in the science behind beauty and in making cutting-edge skin care, color cosmetics and fragrance products. Mary Kay, in its commitment to the empowerment of women and their families, collaborates with organizations around the world, focused on cancer research, supporting women who have suffered domestic violence, creating a better environment and helping children to Follow your dreams. Mary Kay Ash's legacy continues to shine through the years. More information at www.marykay.com.pe.

About Arbor Day Foundation

Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has grown to be one of the world's largest tree-planting nonprofit organizations, with more than a million members, supporters, and partners. Over the past 45 years, the Arbor Day Foundation has planted more than 350 million trees in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests around the world. Our vision is to help others understand and use trees as a solution to many of the global problems we face today, for example air quality, water quality, climate change, deforestation, poverty and hunger.

The Arbor Day Foundation is one of the largest conservation foundations in the world. Through its members, partners, and programs, it educates and engages communities around the world to participate in its mission to plant, nurture, and honor trees. Learn more at arborday.org.

contacts

Mary Kay Inc. Global Corporate Communications marykay.com/newsroom(+1) 972-687-5332 or [email protected]