Draft: AMDP Investment Proposal

To: Clark Hansen, CEO, AMDP
From: Niki Zareh, Research and Development Analyst
Date: March 1, 2019
Subject: Proposed AMDP Investment in Glossier. 

As two companies that have values based in the Triple Bottom Line, AMDP and Glossier match up perfectly together. Before describing the company’s sustainable strategies and financials, let me first explain AMDP’s standards. These include: Triple Bottom Line, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Enterprise, and Carbon Footprint.

Triple Bottom Line

Three P’s: Profit, People, and Planet

First coined by John Elkington, a world authority on corporate responsibility, Triple Bottom Line means that a company should prepare three distinct “bottom lines.” Besides focusing on the company’s profits alone as a traditional bottom line, a business should pay attention to “people” and to “planet” accounts. The “people” account is a measure of how socially responsible a company is when conducting business, while the “planet” account measures the degree of environmental responsibility. Thus, a company needs to take into account what its economic, social, and environmental impact is.  

Corporate Social Responsibility

When a company evidences Corporate Social Responsibility, it means that the company is not only committed to contributing to its economic development, but also to improving the quality of life of its workforce, community, and society at large.

Social Enterprise

A Social Enterprise is a business that improves human and environmental well-being rather than having the maximizing of profits as its major goal.

Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the company which adversely impacts the environment. Today, there are many ways to calculate carbon footprint, from traditional to online methods. The traditional method, “lifecycle assessment,” involves adding up as many of the emission pathways as possible. Another approach uses “input-output” analysis where the company takes the total emissions of a country or region and divides it by sectors. There are also many online calculators; however, most of them do not produce identical results because of the various methods used.

Glossier is a back-to-basics, digitally native beauty brand that has built a cult following, particularly among millennials. Emily Weiss is the Founder of the cosmetics company Glossier. In 2013, Weiss started approaching venture capitalists with ideas for expansion, including a potential Into the Gloss-curated e-commerce platform. Weiss eventually raised $2 million in seed funding, with the help of venture capitalist. Weiss used the initial investment to hire a small team. In October 2014, Weiss unveiled the brand’s first four products on her blog. Six weeks after the first product launch, Glossier announced $8.4 million in Series A funding led by Thrive Capital. Glossier has since gone through three rounds of funding and raised $86,400,000. In February 2018, Weiss released that Glossier had successfully raised an additional $52 million in a Series C round of funding. 

Unlike traditional beauty brands where products are developed first, after which the brands must figure out how to sell them, Glossier puts the specific consumer product need out front, thus simplifying the sales and marketing process. In this way, Glossier co-creates its product offerings.

Glossier is powered by a fierce and loyal dedication to its customers, their needs and wants. It all starts with its direct and intimate customer relationships.