Sustainability Under Scrutiny: Wellness Industry's New Reality

On Tuesday, during London Climate Action Week 2026, Newsweek hosted the Farm to Future: Sustainable Wellness Summit, bringing together key stakeholders in the fight against climate change.

"The wellness industry is at an important moment. For years, sustainability was a differentiator. It helped brands stand out, connect with consumers, and tell a compelling story. Today, that’s changed. Consumers are asking more questions. Investors are asking more questions. Regulators are asking more questions," Newsweek Executive Vice President Amit Shah said in his opening remarks.

During six panel discussions that focused on various aspects of the business environment of the sustainable wellness industry, two keynote addresses by Her Excellency Samira Bawumia and global thought leader Prof. Salma Abbasi, and a fireside chat with Ian Spaulding, CEO of LQRA, speakers noted how, while there are multiple facets of the topic, they are all interrelated and require immediate action.

No Amount of Marketing Compensates for a Failing Supply Chain

Her Excellency Samira Bawumia kicked off the conference on a cautionary note, saying, "We gather at a moment when wellness is no longer simply a lifestyle conversation; it’s now a question of science, sustainability, transparency, and trust. Today, wellness has become one of the world’s fastest growing industries, and across the world, consumers are demanding healthier products, investors are demanding greater transparency, governments are demanding greater accountability, and markets are demanding evidence, and climate change is demanding action."

She used a personal anecdote of her experience growing up and living in Ghana to explain that decisions made in boardrooms worldwide have real life consequences across the entire product supply chain.

"It begins on the soil with resilient farmers, clean water, biodiversity, labor in communities whose livelihoods depend on the land and the climate, because every ingredient tells a story. Every supply chain begins with people, and every wellness product ultimately depends on the health of our planet," Bawumia told the audience during her address.

She warned: "If our soil is degraded, our crops suffer. If our biodiversity declines, our food systems become vulnerable. If climate change continues to disrupt rainfall, increase temperatures, and threaten agricultural productivity, then no amount of marketing will compensate for a failing supply chain."

The Cost of Climate Action

The cost of auditing related to adhering to the new European Union Green Transition Directive, which will go into effect in September, is substantial, panelist Veryan Palmer, director of the Headland Hotel, explained to assembled conference goers, saying, "I think that there is going to be a significant issue."

She went further explaining that if adherence isn't accessible to everyone because of a lack of global standard then it will be, "out of the financial reach of a lot of businesses, hospitality in particular, particularly in the U.K.," she said.

The directive is aimed at controlling greenwashing with guidelines for an auditing process to back up any eco-friendly claims a business may make. If a business has not gone through the proper auditing process, they are not allowed to make claims.



"I do think that there’s going to be an element of green hushing, because if you can’t talk about it, no one realizes you’re doing it. That’s also that’s not great for consumers," Palmer said.

"It's going to be interesting to see what develops over the next 12-18 months, because there’s no doubt that something will have to change. There will have to be standardization, so that even the micro businesses who are doing the right thing in this sort of this climate crisis era can actually talk about what they’re doing," she continued.

“We’ll probably see organizations that will go upwards, regardless of the challenges, and organizations that will get a little bit cold feet, and will stop doing it," warned panelist Isabella Tonaco, Chief Sustainability Officer at Symrise.

Win-Win-Win Strategy Shaping Generations

Colgate-Palmolive’s Chief Sustainability Officer Ann Tracy shared a story of the 30-year success of the company's Bright Smiles, Bright Futures global initiative, which now has a presence in 100 countries.

"It's designed to bring oral health and hygiene education, and in some cases services," Tracy explained.

The company had a target of reaching 2 billion people by 2025. They surpassed that target a year early. Now, the goal is to reach 2.75 billion by 2030, something Tracy calls "a big acceleration."

The company has ramped up efforts to engage people via digital connections and enabled nurse interactions. And, Colgate-Palmolive is now partnered with the World Health Organization Foundation to elevate oral health as a concern. "It's the number one disease in children around the world," Tracy said.

She explained that poor oral health has a larger impact than just tooth decay saying that something as simple as getting a cavity can lead to school absenteeism, and more troubles equals a rise in attendance delinquency, with the side effect being learning loss.

"It’s a social impact project. The win is certainly for the people, for helping children and their families. We build brand loyalty because we give them products and introduce our products to them, so we win." Tracy told the crowd.

It is generally accepted that poor oral health leads to environmental consequences:

• Raw materials and energy usage
• Possibility of improper disposal of pharmaceutical waste and substances
• Food waste and dietary inefficiency, causing a reliance on processed foods, which often have larger environmental footprints than unprocessed foods
• Higher lifetime carbon footprint as oral health is indicative of overall health

By improving the health of children, the health of the Earth is also improved– the third win.

Absolute Sourcing Transparency is the New Premium

Will Smelko, co- founder and CEO of nutritional supplement company Ora has done a deep dive into his company's competition, and the results were alarming, he told Field to Future attendees.

He had some advice for consumers: "First off is transparency. You want to look for brands that are open and transparent about their quality control processes. They should look and ask questions: Do you test every batch? Do you test a third-party ISO accredited labs? What’s your process like? Will you share those results?"

Smelko continued: "It’s one thing just to verbalize, ‘we’re high quality, we’re great, we’re the best,' but that means nothing if you can’t prove it."

Goods Circularity in Focus

"Circularity gets talked about in a lot of different contexts, and a lot of times we don’t talk about it in agriculture. I think there is much as we can and should talk about," Jim Andrew, executive vice president of PepsiCo, the parent company of the Lay's potato chip brand, told the audience.

PepsiCo has a program in place that is helping potato farmers and the environment. "We use a lot of potatoes. As a company, we source about 45 billion potatoes a year, and the vast, vast majority of potatoes get peeled. So, the question is, ‘What do you do with all those peels?'" Andrew posited to the audience.

"Right here in the U.K., we’re working with a company called CCm Technologies, and we’re taking those waste potato peels and we’re turning them into fertilizer," he said.

The executive went into detail: "The peels are being processed using fermentation and few other secrets that CCm has. That becomes fertilizer, which goes back to some of those same farmers to grow potatoes again. That’s real circularity in real life."

This is just a sample of the lively discussions that happen during Newsweek events. We hope to see you at our coming Climate Week conferences in New York City in September. The Future of Food and Agriculture Forum and Pillars of Stability: Building Resilient Systems will occur on September 22 at One World Trade Center.

Newsweek's Farm to Future: Sustainable Wellness Summit was presented by LRQA, Natac, Ora, Regenari and Symrise.

2026 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.

This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 11:07 AM.