Raymond Cloosterman founded Rituals in 2000, in an Amsterdam basement. Since then the wellness and beauty product company has grown to an international chain operating more than 1400 stores in 33 countries. The stores are intended to be places where people can step aside from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and reflect on what they want, what they need, and what will make them happy.

In 2022 Rituals became a B Corporation, which means that the company has been independently certified to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, as well as being transparent and accountable. However, Cloosterman believed that simply avoiding harm to people and the environment is just the baseline expectation for any company. Rituals was doing well, and they felt a responsibility to use their business as a force for good. 

So, in 2024, the wellbeing and beauty brand introduced the 10% Profit Pledge: a long-term commitment to dedicate at least 10% of its annual net profits to initiatives that help improve the wellbeing of people and planet. One unexpected benefit is the unexpected enthusiasm of both current and prospective employees, about working for Rituals. Cloosterman hopes that Rituals will set an example that other, bigger, companies will follow. 

Over the next ten years, 10% of Rituals’ net profits is expected to amount to €300 million. With an emphasis on bringing about systemic change, this commitment advances deep partnerships with organizations lifting entire communities out of extreme poverty and supporting initiatives protecting our planet’s oceans and forests. 

It was this pledge, and the ambition behind it, that caught our attention. It gave us hope that our vision of widespread company giving could become a reality and inspired us to invite the brand to join our global initiative as a founding partner, and help to shape its direction. Rituals welcomed the opportunity to contribute and shares our hope that many more companies will follow its example.

In 2012, when Simon Griffiths, Jehan Ratnatunga and Danny Alexander learned that more than 2 billion people have no access to toilets or safe drinking water, they founded Who Gives a Crap: a company that sells toilet paper and donates all the profits to charities providing toilets and clean water to communities that lack these basic facilities. To crowdfund the $50,000 needed for their first production run, Simon sat on a toilet and refused to get up until they'd raised the money. That took 50 hours. 

The toilet paper is made either from recycled paper or from sustainably-grow bamboo. Once their product caught on, the founders realized that the lack of capital was preventing them from expanding into new markets. They also came to a new insight: donating 50% of the profits from a much larger company would have more impact than donating 100% of the profits from a smaller company that needed to reinvest profits to be able to keep growing. So in 2021, they sought out investors who would be content with no more than half the profits. Today, Who Gives a Crap products are available in 36 countries and the company has donated over $18 million to provide people with water, sanitation and hygiene.