The unexpected relationship between Elephants and Bees

By Amanda Elmander. Photo: Lernberger Stafsing

Joining forces is one of the most powerful instruments for a charity organization that aims to raise awareness. Spreading knowledge to as many people as possible is a huge challenge. The Perfect World Foundation is always on the look out for people and companies who share our believes and who are eager to join us in our mission. Together we can reach a broader audience, and among many other things, help people to make better choices, simply by buying products that are better for the environment.

One of these prosperous collaborations we have, is together with Mattias Stafsing and Patrik Lernberger, founders and owners of the Swedish beauty brand ‘Lernberger Stafsing’, that have been Perfect World ambassadors for many years now.

How did you get in contact with The Perfect World Foundation?

“We’re driven by our passion of beauty. Part of that is about the environment and health, which is how our paths crossed with The Perfect World Foundation and our close friend Amanda Elmander, also works as a volunteer for the organization. As part of our support, we help celebrated guests get glamorous for the red carpet before the annual gala. It’s a prime example of how style and substance meet and raise the bar. Most recently, we helped Sarah, Duchess of York, to get red carpet-ready. This, in turn, led her to choose work together with us when her daughter Princess Eugenie got married last autumn. These kinds of meetings become possible thanks to our work within beauty while they also help us reach out to people with our message and spread the word in the long run.”

This year, Patrik and Mattias pledge to make a bigger commitment to The Perfect World Foundation by dedicating a product in collaboration with the organization. In the process of deciding what cause would be the aim of this campaign, it soon became very clear.

“We are currently replacing our ingredients of animal origin, such as keratin and silk protein, with plant based alternatives. At the moment, about 85 percent of our haircare range is vegan. Our ambition is to reach 100 percent by 2021. To date, we have about 70 products in our product range, and only three of them contain water-soluble silicone, which more often is a standard ingredient in beauty products on the market. Silicones give hair and skin products a superior feel, but are also harmful to the environment, so we’re currently challenging our chemists and suppliers to develop products with alternative eco-friendly ingredients. Searching for ingredients in nature makes us dependent on pollinators – who produce the natural ingredients for our products. Therefore, supporting the planet’s pollinators and rising awareness about their endangered situation was an obvious choice for us.”

The ‘S.O.S Barrier Repair Cream’ and The Perfect World Foundation… what’s the story?

“The product that we were in the process of launching when we begun our discussions with The Perfect World Foundation is a rescue cream, to be used on skin when sensitive or damaged. When we decided on the name ‘S.O.S Barrier Repair Cream’, it just felt like a perfect match with the threatened situation of the pollinators, they are also in a S.O.S situation, and in need of help and rescue.”

Now all that was missing was a The Perfect World project that would align with what Patrik and Mattias wanted to dedicate their product and proceeds to and one amazing project stood out.

The human-wildlife conflict with elephants in Africa is a big problem. As agriculture is spreading out the risk of farmers’ crops and properties being destroys by elephants increase. But nature is clever, and discovering that elephants are afraid of bees turned out to be a welcome solution. A local project realized that they could lead the elephants away from areas where people are living by placing beehives at strategic locations and minimize the conflict. The impact of the beehives doesn’t stop with just easing up the human-wildlife conflict, it also provides farmers with better crops, adds an extra source of income by selling honey and beeswax, it saves trees from being destroyed by the elephants passing by, and helps biodiversity thrive.

What’s the ambition, what do you hope your product will be able to contribute to?

“Our goal is to raise money to educate beekeepers, buy and put up plenty of beehives, and also plant a community garden to provide the bees with nectar, to keep them happy and alert in their ‘job’ to keep the elephants at a distance.”

Ragnhild Jacobsson CEO of The Perfect World Foundation concludes, “We’re super pleased with our collaboration with Lernberger Stafsing. What we aspire to do with all of our collaborations is to find companies who share our dream of a better world. We strive to find a link between what they do and a cause that we work to improve, and most importantly, to support people and organizations worldwide that dedicate their lives to projects that are curtail for the survival of endangered wildlife and biodiversity.”