In her notes on what Gellert said, she reports he conveyed, “As most brands, we’re truly not sustainable, it’s more so about making sustainable decisions and being a responsible brand, which I do think is a bit of a marketing term right now, but, however, I did like the honesty that went into it.”

Boamah’s Axios House event takeaways sparked our curiosity about the idea of brand responsibility. So, for this edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 23 founders and executives the following questions: What does it mean to be a “responsible” brand? Does the notion of responsibility appeal to consumers? How does it compare to other descriptors of company values such as sustainable, ethical, transparent or socially conscious?