Good Joe
Good JoeA favourite online shop, Good Joe believes small gestures go a long way in the drive towards more thoughtful shopping. What’s more, Good Joe feel the onus is on the brands to build social conscience into their businesses.
‘We’re keen to make it easy for people to shop more consciously and to make a difference as they buy. That begins with businesses providing goods and services that have a positive social impact.’
The brand launched online towards the end of 2016, selling British-made t-shirts and polos with the emphasis on quality wardrobe staples that last, challenging the throwaway fashion culture typical of the high street.
As well as manufacturing in the UK, Good Joe give back through their ‘Buy One, Give One’ commitment. For every shirt purchased, a new item of clothing is donated to a local UK charity.
The ‘local’ aspect is central to Good Joe’s values: ‘It’s about community, a collective endeavour between supplier, retailer and customer where we can all take responsibility for supporting and improving our home environment.’
Fronting these higher ideals, there sits an essentially quirky brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Their logo is reminiscent of the ubiquitous red name badge, ‘Hello, my name is . . .’ signalling the inclusive personality that is Joe.
‘Our strapline is “Wear a Difference”. We know a t-shirt won’t change the world, but for now we hope the thought process behind it can provoke a different narrative for how we shop.’
Pull The Cork
Pull The Cork This quality wine retailer launched in spring 2017, its mission to play a pivotal role in bringing together the burgeoning trend of sustainable wines with an ever-growing group of people looking for these wines.
Pull The Cork source their wines from the ‘Old World’, but they also like to offer customers something out of the usual range, from lesser-known varieties and countries. The majority of their wines are natural, either organically or biodynamically produced, fermented with indigenous yeast and made with just a few minimal interventions between vineyard and bottle.
The brand is simply after quality, natural produce and diversity. And to help customers navigate the maze of ‘natural wines’, ‘terroirs’ and ‘food pairings’.
Whether it’s simple wines for the everyday table, impressive wines for those special occasions, or a wedding wine for that special day, Pull The Cork pride their business on being an easy-to-use platform for the very best of the sustainable wines that are out there. A lot of their wines are on an allocation basis only, to which they have been given sole access to sell these incredibly diverse wines.
The wine retailer believes that people are growing more and more conscious about their health and the environment. As a consequence, they take a large interest in the products they use, where they are coming from and how they are made. They believe consumers need an increased awareness of not just how sustainable wine is made, but also the wine’s origins.
Pull The Cork is owned by James Nathan and Moritz Bak, and with help from Eelco Snijders, they are a young, dynamic and extremely passionate team whose aim is to keep consumers healthy and educated.
ethical.market
ethical.marketAn on-trend, online retail space offering clothes, jewellery and accessories for men, women and children, ethical.market was founded in 2013, after co-founder Raquel discovered the hidden costs of cheap clothing and the terrible toll taken on garment workers in developing countries.
Here is a marketplace with one aim: to disrupt the high street by being open and honest, providing full transparency with every product they list. Showcasing a collection of affordable, design-led products with fair working practices at the heart of everything they sell, ethical.market proves you don’t have to change who you are to make a difference – just how you shop.
Operating with a strict ethos, the retail space currently offers over three hundred brands who care about the impact of their supply chain and believe in creating a fairer way to do business.
Being ethical means different things to different people, and because of this, ethical.market have introduced twelve additional ethical standards, which include being vegan-friendly, sustainable and allowing no animal testing, creating a shopping experience where customers can truly understand the impact of what they are buying.
This brand believes that shopping ethically is the only way consumers can protect the future of both the environment and its people.
Greencane
GreencaneImagine having sustainable toilet paper delivered to your door with no excess packaging except the cardboard box it comes in.
Now you can – at the click of a mouse.
It’s called Naked Toilet Paper, and it’s a new initiative offered by Greencane Paper in response to customer pleas for a zero-packaging option.
Greencane has long been committed to providing its toilet paper, kitchen towels, napkins and tissues in 100% plastic-free, biodegradable packaging, but now the innovative paper company has taken that goal a step further, offering its online customers bulk deliveries of 48 rolls of unpackaged toilet paper.
The paper itself contains primarily recycled sugar cane and fast-renewable bamboo. It’s GMO, BPA and chlorine-free, but just as strong and soft as high-quality wood-based toilet paper. They say you wouldn’t know the difference!
Geoff and Helen Arden launched Greencane Paper nearly ten years ago, when Geoff came across a local forest being felled for pulp and began to ask why trees that took up to thirty years to grow were being chopped down to make low-value products like toilet paper. ‘It’s just wrong, when you have a sustainable alternative that takes only one year to grow,’ he says.
‘We launched Greencane as a change initiative. It was never as much about starting a business as it was about giving people the opportunity to live more lightly.’
Today Greencane Paper is fast becoming a global brand, with products stocked in Australia, New Zealand and Europe as well as in the UK.
Scrumbles
ScrumblesThis sustainable pet food brand makes good food for cats and dogs that doesn’t cost the earth. A fledgling British start-up, they have taken their own approach to ensuring their products are nutritious, delicious . . . and conscious.
Having seen the pet food industry from the inside, founding husband-and-wife team Aneisha and Jack, pet parents to Smudge and Boo, were unhappy with the choices available, so set out to create their own.
Their simple, wholesome recipes are free from common allergens, artificial colours, flavours and preservatives and unnecessary additives such as sugar, salt and pea protein. Added probiotics help maintain a healthy digestive system.
Taking a firm stance on species- and size-appropriate nutrition, each recipe is carefully tailored accordingly from the amount of protein and carbohydrate down to the ratio of calcium to phosphorus.
As advocates for better transparency and clearer labelling in pet food, Scrumbles have gone to great lengths to provide clarity on and off pack as to what goes into their food, as well as creating comprehensive feeding guidelines centred not only on animal size, but around age and lifestyle, too.
Scrumbles believe in the power of business to do good, and work closely with animal charities like DOTs and Born Free, driving education and awareness of these good causes as well as donating 10% of profits to help guarantee adventures for generations to come.
Scrumbles launched this summer, and is available online and at select independent pet stores.
Pala Eyewear
Pala Eyewear Wear. Love. Give. Here is a British brand whose mission is to produce great eyewear while simultaneously helping to change lives through the gift of spectacles.
Ten per cent of the world’s population are unable to access eyecare, yet a pair of prescription glasses is one of the most cost-effective poverty-alleviating tools you can give someone. They empower the beneficiary to read, learn and work.
In partnership with the charity Vision Aid Overseas, Pala can unite the sale of a pair of sunglasses to the giving of a pair of spectacles through direct grants into their outreach projects across Africa. The brand has recently completed the creation of a vision centre in Muchinga, Zambia that serves a population of over 75,000.
Pala Eyewear work with three weaving communities in Bolgatanga, Ghana that make their unique sunglasses cases from recycled plastic bags, sachets and packaging. The plastic is washed, cut and twisted into strands, then woven just like straw to form the case – a more sustainable solution for the weavers, who would otherwise be limited to the seasonal availability of straw. Instead, there’s year-round production, recycling of waste destined for landfill, training and jobs – and protection for your sunglasses, of course.
Pala sunglasses are made from high-quality materials, using custom-made cellulose acetate for the frames with stainless steel metalwork.
Balm Balm
Balm Balm Balm Balm, the UK’s favourite 100% organic skincare brand, has eliminated all plastic tubes, bottles and jars from their packaging and switched their lids to recyclable polypropylene.
With increasing evidence that plastic has become one of the greatest environmental problems of our times, Balm Balm decided that the time to act was now. While many companies have pledged to eliminate plastics from their packaging over the next seven years and joined the recently formed the UK Plastics Pact, Balm Balm just went ahead and did it.
As the Dalai Lama wisely said, there are only two days when nothing can be done: one is yesterday and the other is tomorrow – so you must do everything today. This was the motto behind the decision for Balm Balm to take the plunge and redesign all their packaging to eliminate plastic wherever possible. With over fifty products involved in the switch, this was no small undertaking!
The benefits, however, have been instantaneous. Since the change, Balm Balm has been approached by numerous zero-waste shops eager to stock the brand. Customers have been very positive, too, welcoming the change and embracing the brand more than ever.
Sometimes doing the right thing is also the smart thing when it comes to business!
KAPDAA – The Offcut company
KAPDAA – The Offcut companyIf you work in textiles and are wondering what to do with the extra ends of rolls and offcuts that pile up each season, then KAPDAA could be the answer. The Offcut Company, as they call themselves, collaborate with fashion and interior designers to repurpose their existing excess materials from the cutting floor to create beautiful day-to-day products, solving the cloth waste management issue.
KAPDAA endeavour to change the perception that upcycled products are not good quality or are too expensive. Offcuts and ends of rolls can all be reused to make excellent everyday products.
The company started their sustainable journey with their signature notebooks, and have since expanded their range of offerings to create luggage tags, passport holders, eye masks, slippers, coin pouches and more for their clients. KAPDAA also aim to preserve traditional craft skills such as bookbinding and screen-printing, so that these rapidly depleting trades continue to prosper in future.
The company’s clientele comprises a mix of mills, textile designers and interior designers. Their collaborations include British one-man-band businesses, shoemakers in LA, Paris weavers, New York-based fashion houses and even Belgian pram makers and Scottish and Italian mills.
KAPDAA’s zero-waste concept, with its streamlined form of waste transformation, allows for all kinds of post-production materials to be infused with fresh purpose. Offcut pieces as small as 4 x 8cm can be transformed into new products, creating sustainable quality goods.
Woven Image
Woven ImageAfter identifying a strong need for design-driven textile products, Woven Image was established in 1987. The brand is based in Australia, and has fast become a leading international business-to-business supplier of high-performance quality textiles and acoustic solutions for a wide range of interiors including offices, hotels, restaurants, airports and theatres.
The brand has a dedicated workforce that continues to drive the mission statement, that of delivering high-quality products and solutions made from innovative materials with exquisite design elements that will transform work and living spaces into comfortable, enjoyable and welcoming surroundings.
Environmentally friendly products and sustainability are at the core of the company, and because of Woven Image’s commitment to their ethos, they have become pioneers in creating and manufacturing high-performance products, all using recycled materials.
Today almost all Woven Image products have gained environmental accreditation from third-party organisations. Woven Image’s product developments include a large collection of simple-to-install acoustic performance wall tiles, and a range of hanging acoustic panels, customisable in colour and design to suit any design scheme.
Recent collaborations include new acoustic panels, wallcoverings and high-performance textiles designed by the iconic Australian artist Bruce Goold.
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