The bottle of argan oil on the shelf carries a story that most labels never tell. Wild-harvested botanicals sit inside a long chain of harvesters, cooperatives, traders and processors — and, according to Personal Care Insights, that chain is often fragmented, hard to trace, and weakly visible at the harvest level. The new Wild Harvest Improvement Project (WHIP) Framework, launched by the NGO TRAFFIC and the conservation consultancy Biodiversify, is a direct answer to that problem.
The practical takeaway is simple: sustainability in wild-harvest beauty sourcing no longer begins and ends with a certification logo. WHIP offers companies and communities a structured route to improvement — mapping supply chains, setting baselines, strengthening traceability — before certification is even feasible. Here is what the framework actually does, what its two pilots found, and how to read a wild-harvest claim with more confidence.
What is the WHIP Framework, and who is behind it?
WHIP stands for Wild Harvest Improvement Project. It was launched by TRAFFIC — the Trade Record Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce, an NGO specializing in the protection of wild plants and animals — in partnership with Biodiversify, a British conservation consultancy.
The framework itself was developed through a wider partnership that included the Global Diversity Foundation, the Moroccan Biodiversity and Livelihoods Association, and FairWild. Funding came from the UK Government through the Darwin Initiative. The stated aim is to empower communities and businesses to pursue regenerative alternatives in their supply chains, with a pragmatic route toward sustainability certification.
Why does wild harvesting matter to the beauty industry?
"The approach is particularly relevant for cosmetics because many companies source relatively small volumes of botanicals but face significant biodiversity, human rights, and reputational risks associated with those ingredients," says Cara Flowers, sustainable supply chain manager at TRAFFIC, in the Personal Care Insights interview.
She names the typical problems across ingredient supply chains: fragmented sourcing networks, multiple intermediaries, limited traceability, and weak visibility of conditions at the harvest level. For a reader, that opacity is the reason a "wild-harvested" claim on a label is hard to verify — the brand itself may not know precisely where its raw material originated.
What did the Morocco and Uzbekistan pilots find?
WHIP was piloted twice, on two ingredients with familiar beauty uses. In Morocco, the pilot focused on argan harvesting; in Uzbekistan, on licorice. Both ingredients appear in applications ranging from oral hygiene products to hair and skin care.
The Morocco pilot showed how value chains can become "increasingly opaque" as intermediaries and multinational buyers extend power over raw material access. "Cooperatives often no longer know precisely where all harvested material originates and struggle to secure direct access to fruit," Flowers says.
The Uzbekistan licorice pilot found a parallel problem: processors frequently purchase through intermediaries, making it difficult to identify harvest locations, harvesters, and compliance with harvest limits.
What does the framework actually do, step by step?
Rather than relying solely on end-point certification, WHIP creates what Flowers calls "a structured, multi-stakeholder improvement process that brings together harvesters, communities, traders, processors, brands, NGOs, and government authorities around a shared improvement plan."
In practical terms, the framework's components are:
- Mapping supply chains and stakeholders
- Establishing baseline assessments
- Strengthening traceability systems
- Developing collective action plans
- Defining measurable environmental and social indicators
- Creating transparent reporting and verification processes
The point of the sequence is accessibility. "Certification should not be the starting line. Certification should not even be the destination, but instead part of continuous and incremental improvement," says Flowers. "WHIPs are therefore intended to make the pathway to sustainability accessible to a broader range of producers, including small cooperatives and harvesting communities that may otherwise be excluded from formal certification processes."
Should beauty brands simply stop wild sourcing?
No — and Flowers is explicit about why. The beauty industry abandoning wild sourcing entirely can have unintended consequences for livelihoods and the environment. "Many wild plant species support entire ecosystems and provide critical income for rural communities," she says.
The argan pilot illustrates the stakes. Argan forests support more than 1,200 plant and animal species, including many endemic species, while providing protection against desertification, reducing soil erosion, improving water retention, and supporting rural livelihoods. Argan is also culturally and economically important: women's cooperatives generate employment, income, literacy opportunities, and greater economic independence for rural women. If you use argan in a hair routine, the sourcing behind it is part of the picture — see our guide to hair oils and which ones actually do the work for the practical side. We covered a connected angle in Hair Oils Explained: Which Ones Actually Do the Work.
The licorice pilot showed the same dynamic from another angle. The sector provides employment opportunities in remote parts of Karakalpakstan, an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan, where alternative livelihoods are limited.
How can a reader act on this now?
The framework is aimed at companies and communities, but it hands the reader a usable checklist. When a product leans on a wild-harvested botanical, the questions WHIP would ask of a supply chain translate directly:
- Does the brand name the harvest region, or only the ingredient?
- Is there any stated traceability or verification process, or does the claim stop at the ingredient name?
- Does the brand describe community benefits — employment, income, literacy — or only environmental claims?
- Is the brand working toward a recognized standard, such as FairWild, or engaged in a documented improvement process?
A label's promises have limits, and knowing what a brand can and cannot claim is the reader's best tool — our guide to what a beauty label can and cannot promise covers that ground in detail. Readers following this should also see What a Beauty Label Can and Cannot Promise: A Reader's Guide.
What comes next for wild-harvest sourcing?
WHIP's own logic points forward: certification as one part of continuous, incremental improvement rather than a finish line. For the beauty industry, the framework lowers the threshold for participation — small cooperatives and harvesting communities that were previously excluded from formal certification now have a route in. What the evidence establishes is the mechanism and the two pilots' findings; what remains open is how widely brands adopt the process, and whether the next pilots extend the model to other botanicals.
