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ETHICAL BRAND DIRECTORY FAQs
INTRO: OUR WHY IN 90-SECONDS
Meet our founder Roberta Lee who shares our story, our why, our plans for growth and our big vision for the future.
The Ethical Brand Directory has grown and evolved. We now offer 3-core services to help ethical businesses get found and grow.
We have now created PRO and PLUS options for membership to our The Ethical Brand Directory community – or a simple annual listing fee.
Our focus is on supporting as many small businesses as possible to do things the right way putting ethics & sustainability at the heart of it.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: MEMBERSHIP
Costs vary and are subject to change. Please see membership options for each of our membership packages. Visit our membership services pages for the most up to date prices.
We offer a simple basic membership for the Directory and a basic monthly subscription fee for the Academy.
We have 1 options
Basic listing £189 one time fee
This is a low-cost fee which includes a listing in our directory, and access to 2 accountability and knowledge sharing calls each year. And unlimited PR opportunities as long as your listing is kept up-to-date and EBD score improves over the years.
This service has been decommissioned, after much consideration we realised we are not set up to handle ecommerce, it’s not what we love, so we are sticking to what we know and do best and that’s creating a beautiful directory showcasing a diverse selection of ethical fashion and beauty brands, whilst creating a supportive community to help our brands grow.
We still plan to offer pop-ups across London.
We have now entered partnerships with other e-commerce platforms that share our values, so we can get our brands more exposure. More on that coming soon!
The Academy is on hold – a lot of our training is now outdated due to new regulations and technical updates for things like SEO.
After much consideration, we realised that a system that can help our brands communicate their business more clearly, with guidance on transparency, reporting, and avoiding greenwashing would help our brands obtain higher scores in our new ethical brand ranking system.
Once the Academy page is rebuilt, there will be FREE access to all directory members giving you the freedom to access our expert training sessions.
For non-members, there is a low-cost paid monthly membership option (cancel any time).
No and Yes. We don’t offer any try before you buy options for the Directory.
We DO offer some free training modules on the Academy, and you can opt-out of the monthly subscription fee at any time.
No, you can mix and match to suit your needs.
We don’t offer discounts for brands – as we’ve reduced our fees from £480 per year to £189 one-time fee due to the cost of living crisis.
This reduction barely covers our operational costs. So sadly, we can’t offer any more reductions.
In the future, we hope to raise funds to be able to offer bursaries to promising new brands – but this is a 2024/25 goal and not something we are currently pursuing.
EBD is run as a not-for-profit project, supported and funded by Roberta Style Lee, and supported by volunteers.
Apply Now for Directory Membership
Join our Directory. Fill our short application and simple assessment form today!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Onboarding
Not too difficult if you have all your company documentation, supplier audits and proof of certifications to hand!
You will need all your company data, documents, certificates and generally any proof of auditing factories and suppliers. The form allows you to upload content and our system will allocate a score based on your answers.
Our team will check your supporting evidence.
Your profile will be sent to our founder Roberta Lee to confirm.
She will take into account the transparency of information on your website ease of finding it) and your brand’s overall aesthetic – and then decide if she will approve.
We process the payment, or refund you if you are not suitable. If accepted you will be directed towards an automated onboarding process for building your founder interview and brand listing
As a directory member your products will be highlighted on our website + across our marketing, so we will need you to upload digital assets into a folder for us.
You will need all your company data, documents, certificates and generally any proof of auditing factories and suppliers. Tracability of the people you work with through third parties or directly are paid a decent living wage, that you adopt sustainable practices in the production of your products. How you handle toxic waste. You will need to know where your materials come from, how they are made and by who.
Yes, we have several brands who have one hero product, available in different colour ways.
Yes, we are not a vegan Directory or Boutique, but you must not list any fur and any leather must be sourced responsibly. If you are unable to trace where your materials come from it will be hard to prove it wasn’t enethically sourced.
Yes, however we would need a public commitment from you to make a change to your packaging so that it is compostable or fully recyable. We would encourage you to implment a return scheme for customers any plastic packaging, such as moisturiser pots for beauty products.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Collaboration OPPORTUNITIES
We give our members preferential treatment and allocate collaboration opportunities to them first. We do not promote brands, or collaborate with brands that are not listed on the Ethical Brand Directory.
With regards to the Ethical Brand Academy we do work with service based businesses that are not listed on the Directory.
We work very closely with our paying brands to ensure they get the best opportunities we can provide. This will vary from sharing the costs of marketing campaigns, group photoshoots, reduced fees for shared exhibiting space at events. Roberta Lee our founder also features her stylists picks in her shoots, recommendations for her clients, on her online course, her styling tips (a downloadable lead magnet), on the TV, on stage and much more.
The Academy provides a space to learn, connect and share ideas with others. There are no restrictions on who you collaborate with or how – it’s totally up to you.
We will facilitate group knowledge sharing sessions, masterminds and more. Academy members get access to a private networking group.
Q. HOW DO YOU HELP ETHICAL BRANDS?
Meet Giovanna, the founder of Luxury handbag brand The Morphbag by GSK, one of our lovely members. She shares her experience of working with us since 2019 and explains how her membership with us has helped her grow her business.
"I HAVE HAD AN IMMENSE HELP ON EVERY ASPECT OF MY
BUSINESS AND I WILL CERTAINLY RENEW MY MEMBERSHIP AGAIN NEXT YEAR"
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: MARKETS + REACH
The website is undergoing major SEO improvement, and new sales and marketing funnel rebuilds. We are still a non-profit project and rely on organic traffic. We use a combination of on and offline activities to reach our audience, such as our founder appearing on major TV broadcasting channels like the BBC and ITV. We rely heavily on Roberta’s frequent appearances on the stage in London to raise our profile too.
In short, Roberta’s work on and offline has always driven our online traffic.
Right now we average between 2,000 – 3,000 unique visitors per month.
Once we have rebuilt our systems and optimised our marketing funnels we intend to significantly boost traffic, by allocating a % of all membership fees towards targeted ad spend.
We would like to to see a 10% growth, month on month of website traffic across 2022.
We will continue to leverage our founders organic traffic across her website that gets her a 12,000+ unique visitors per month.
The more content she puts out, the more her traffic expands, so we will leverage backlinks and referral traffic.
EBD has just under 10K followers on Instagram, over 3K on Twitter, our current engagement rate has dropped due to the changing algorithms.
We average between 0.5 – 2% engagement rate. We also intend to invest significant time in our organic SEO through blogging and then moving into a possible YouTube TV series.
Social media marketing. Email marketing. Facebook Adverts. Paid Search. In -person and online events, for example, through pop-ups which gave us access to over 55k consumers and Pure London, as well as PR exposure through Roberta’s media appearances including the BBC, ITV and Harper’s Bazaar, not to mention her VIP styling which includes influential A-List celebrities.
We are primarily UK focused & but we do get a lot of visitors on our site from Europe. Our second largest audience is US.
the ETHICAL BRAND Academy
Get access to all the tools and support you need to build a better business. Even if you’re just starting out or transitioning towards an ethical & sustainable business model – our step by step training will help you get the results you need to communicate what you’re doing in your business and avoid greenwashing!
Q: WHAT COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITIES ARE THERE?
Our founder Roberta Lee is often asked what collaboration opportunities there are for our brands. In this video, she explains the benefits of being a member, as you get access to her network, PR exposure and styling business too.
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