HIVE MIND

As Lynton launches its Hive sustainability initiative, Aesthetic Medicine sat down with the management team to discuss why Lynton’s approach is causing an eco-conscious buzz that could benefit the whole industry

Integrity, reliability, and quality have been the ethos of Lynton, one of the UK’s leading aesthetic technology manufacturers, since its launch in 1994.

Now, for 2023, the company is doubling down on another key pillar that intersects with them all - sustainability. In particular, Lynton is launching a new initiative called Hive. The aim - to better demonstrate its own sustainability efforts and encourage the aesthetic industry as a whole to do more.

“Sustainability is more than a value, it’s a key initiative for Lynton,” explains the managing director of Lynton Dr Jon Exley. “For many years, we’ve done things that I think, with hindsight, fall under the Corporate Social Responsibility banner. For example, for some time, we have been using our laser technology to help conserve ancient artefacts in museums and Cathedrals in the UK, US and Japan. We were even asked by the Vatican if they could have one of our lasers to conserve statues in the Vatican Gardens.

The company’s environmental and social development strategy is known as Hive, to acknowledge the crucial role bees play in the planet’s ecosystem and the importance of working collaboratively, while paying homage to the company’s Manchester heritage. Internally defined as “for Planet, for People, for Good”, Hive is already industry leading, according to Lynton’s commercial director Hayley Jones. For many years, it has supported staff members’ mental health with free counselling sessions, and made donations to local social projects or charities, nominated by staff every quarter. Recent examples include the Thrombosis Society after a clinical manager was personally affected when pregnant, and the factory team’s entry to a local five-a-side football tournament to support cancer research.

Lynton has long been carbon conscious too - not least due to its key technology distribution partnership with the NHS. “The NHS wants companies to produce carbon neutral plans by 2027, and we are well ahead of that roadmap” reveals Exley. “We can now announce that Lynton Lasers is carbon neutral again for 2022”, having hit the same mark for 2021. “We set ourselves targets to reduce our emissions by 10% over the year, and we have just formally done the offset, under a certified scheme.”

That said, despite acknowledging they are “ahead of the game” due to a “lot of advocates within the company”, there’s a lot more to be done, according to Exley. “We would love to become a net zero emitter, not just carbon neutral, but the truth is that’s quite a long way off for us. This year, our big focus is reducing our carbon emissions from travel. Then, in the following two years, we’ll work down our supply chain.”

There are struggles in marketing too, especially around paper usage, explains Jones. “I must admit we find it quite challenging, particularly at trade shows because people still rely on paperbased information and brochure hand-outs. We’ve been moving towards and introduced QR codes on our exhibition stands to offer access to electronic forms of marketing and communication, but it’s working out how we do that without losing competitiveness.”

The launch of Hive is part of this refocus. Lynton’s existing corporate social responsibility agenda will fall under the new brand initiative, which is designed to bring together all the things already happening within the business, plus allow scope for further sustainability schemes and innovations. “It is a new concept, but people will start to see the Hive initiative emerging, and it’ll incorporate our conservation work, our environmental credentials and our social outreach projects locally,” reveals Exley.

In particular, Lynton wants to work even more closely with its clinics for the greater good. “We’ve got several clinics using our equipment who are offering free tattoo removal to people with radiotherapy tattoos,” Jones gives as an example. “So, we are talking about how we can lead on that within our industry by speaking to different charities and pushing that message out to our customer base on social media. Just imagine if we could have every UK clinic offering [that service] as free. Under the Hive banner, we want to have initiatives that encourage our customers to do the right thing and lead on their own sustainability initiatives.”

Lynton already has a reputation as “a really solid, sturdy, reliable brand that’s been around for a long time,” according to Jones. “One of the pieces of feedback we get from our customers is that they love how accessible, approachable, and human we are. In fact, we once had a testimonial at an award ceremony that said, ‘you guys are just good humans’.”

Arguably the strongest string to Lynton’s bow, though, is the expertise behind it. While many aesthetic businesses will claim that science is at their backbone, few can say it’s in their DNA as Lynton Lasers. Not only does the company have a world-leading offering, including its best-selling laser and IPL system LUMINA®, and the world’s first device to use microwave technology for body contouring, Lynton is also a British business born, not in a boardroom, but out of the University of Manchester.

“We were a spin-off from the University of Manchester’s physics department, so our company’s built on the science behind lasers,” explains Exley. “It was a department involved in designing lasers for loads of different applications and out of that came one of the world’s first tattoo removal lasers, and subsequently the development of an IPL system for port wine stains and vascular lesions. We’re the only IPL on the market where we design and build our own product, with four years’ worth of PhD work behind its technology.”

As the 2023 ‘Supplier Training of the Year’ Aesthetic Awards winners, the company is especially passionate about educating the industry as a whole, whether that’s through its VTCT and Ofqual-backed qualifications, the Health Education England training guidelines that Lynton’s executive members helped write, or even clinic reopening advice post-Covid-19.

“During the pandemic, there was so much misinformation about whether clinics could reopen safely,” explains Jones. “So, we sat down and wrote an aesthetic clinic reopening guide, which we made available for anyone in our industry, no matter what devices they’re using. We had thousands of downloads from our website. I think that shows we are the kind of company that wants to share for the good of the industry; we’re always trying to think about how we help other businesses.”

With that in mind, there are rumours of even more exciting plans in the pipeline, as Lynton’s internal and external sustainability goals take shape under the Hive initiative. “I think it’s about the collective,” reveals Exley. “If we all do a bit, it makes a big difference across the board, but I don’t think that everyone’s that active with it across our sector yet. If people can just start the process, that’s a big step forward for our industry.”

Further details are currently firmly under wraps, but in the meantime, Lynton is focusing on investing in its future too. “We’ve grown a lot in the past few years, to the extent where our infrastructure needs further investment,” says Exley. “We’re improving processes across the business to make sure we can function as efficiently as possible so that our customers get the best experience. This year, we’re investing in our after-sales service support, we’ve tripled investment for R&D, and have just recruited a new head of R&D as well.”

One thing is certain, whatever the future holds, Lynton’s empowering ethos of integrity, reliability, quality, and sustainability looks set to invigorate not only the company but influence the whole aesthetics industry too.