If you have searched for the Australian Sunscreen Council or the Australian Sunscreen Association and ended up somewhere other than Accord Australasia, we want to clear a few things up.
Accord Australasia is the peak industry association for the cosmetics, personal care, home care, and industrial and institutional cleaning sectors in Australia. In Australia, we hold the registered business names “Australian Sunscreen Council” and “Australian Sunscreen Association”. We have no association with any other organisation using these names or the information they provide. For reliable information about the sunscreen industry in Australia, the right place to go is accord.asn.au.
We have represented the sunscreen sector, alongside the rest of the cosmetics and personal care industry, for over 50 years.
Accord’s members include the companies responsible for the large majority of sunscreens available on the Australian market, spanning manufacturers, brand owners, and raw material suppliers across the full range of approved UV filter types.
Our regulatory engagement on sunscreens is long-standing and substantive. We've long participated in the development of AS/NZS 2604:2012, contributed to TGA sunscreen guideline consultations, and have worked directly with he TGA, AICIS, and Standards Australia over many years. A 2012 Regulation Impact Statement prepared by the Office of Best Practice Regulation noted that Accord and ASMI members manufactured or sponsored 83 per cent of sunscreens listed on the ARTG at that time, and we’ve grown since then.
In 2025, we published a detailed regulatory roadmap on sunscreen UV filter reform, developed with independent consultants and drawing on the TGA’s own safety review process. Our approach to UV filter safety is grounded in risk-based assessment: accounting for actual human exposure, not just hazard identification. For more on that distinction, Sunscreen versus Beer: An Ingredient Showdown covers an example where the science is much less interesting than some of the conspiracy theorists would have you believe.
Sunscreen regulation is not a purely domestic matter. Australian manufacturers export to more than 40 countries, and the regulatory settings here directly affect access to ingredients, testing requirements, and market competitiveness.
Accord meets regularly, at least twice a year, with the major cosmetics and personal care industry associations around the world. These include Cosmetics Europe, the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) in the United States, Cosmetic Alliance Canada, the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Perfumery Association (CTPA) in the United Kingdom, the Japan Cosmetic Industry Association (JCIA), and others across the Asia-Pacific region. These relationships give us direct visibility into international regulatory developments and ensure that the Australian industry perspective is heard in global conversations.
When regulators and standard-setting bodies in other countries make decisions about UV filters, those decisions affect Australian manufacturers. Having active, peer-to-peer relationships with the associations that represent those markets is part of how Accord delivers value to its members.
If you are a journalist, a government official, a regulator, or a consumer looking for an industry perspective on sunscreen safety and regulation in Australia, Accord Australasia is the organisation you are looking for.
We are the Australian Sunscreen Council. We are the Australian Sunscreen Association (we own these business names). We have been representing this industry for decades, we engage directly with the regulators who oversee it, and we are independent of any individual product, ingredient, or commercial interest.
Accord Australasia has no affiliation with any other organisation using our registered names. For accurate and independent information about sunscreen regulation and the Australian sunscreen industry, visit accord.asn.au.
Damian Mitsch is Executive Director of Accord Australasia.