Be it an electric vehicle to guide you through summer and beyond, an all-natural hair colour for your next escape, or an insurance project with sustainable twist, Sublime introduces five pioneers and the eco-forward brands to keep an eye on this season
Jordan Fantaay
This technology entrepreneur set up his first company 25 years ago while at university, developing a multi-room hi-fi and one of the world’s first DAB radios. Jordan Fantaay worked with the likes of Sennheiser and Reebok on product development before joining Dell as a startup advisor to the board. In 2016, Fantaay presented to US President Barack Obama as part of Dell’s global entrepreneur summit.
Today, his brand Pumpt is on a mission to make the transition to electric vehicles easier by combatting the 
concerns of the UK charging market, both for businesses and consumers. Despite the UK Government’s pledge to make 300,000 public charging points available by 2030, the market appears to be suffering from a lack of guidance about what chargers to buy, clear pricing, and transparency around installation. Pumpt offer an all-in-one EV charging platform with a fixed price, customised finance packages, installation and servicing. What’s more, it’s the first in its field to offer commercial insurance, minimising the barriers that prevent the hospitality, travel, and leisure industries from rolling out more charging points.
‘People need to be able to make informed choices but the whole process of choosing, buying, and installing chargers is too expensive, drawn out, and complex, and they aren’t getting clear advice even as they’re buying a new EV,’ Fantaay says. Pumpt aims to make going green easy by assisting customers with grants, smart chargers, full installation packages, flexible financing options, insurance, and servicing – all managed through an app. The company also works with businesses, helping them maximise investment returns through additional finance plans and guidance creating new revenue streams from charger installations.
Dave Gardiner
Evergreen Insurance Services was set up five years ago by insurance expert and nature lover Dave Gardiner. Their slogan? ‘Nature is our passion; insurance is our business!’. The goal was to create a team of insurance 
brokers that not only cares about its clients and provides personal service but gives something back to nature and wildlife. Since its conception, Evergreen has donated tens of thousands of pounds to nature and wildlife charities of their clients’ choice – and at no additional cost.
‘We specialise in many insurance needs for businesses and personal customers, so please give us a call or fill out the enquiry form on our website and we will do everything we can to find you the best policy for your requirements,’ Gardiner explains. After all, there’s nothing to lose and so much to give back to the planet.
evergreeninsuranceservices.co.uk
Adam Stubley
Continuing its founder’s legacy in promoting more sustainable cosmetic and beauty products, Adam Stubley is the managing director of British business Nature’s Dream, a company whose mission is to distribute ‘naturally better’ brands that have a truly positive effect on consumers’ lives. With seven beauty and wellness brands under his wing, Nature’s Dream has provided a wide range of products based to customers like Holland & Barrett, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Amazon, and Superdrug.
In his role as managing director, Stubley looks after all business functions: sales, brand and marketing, finance, operations, logistics, and e-commerce. His role involves directing strategy, cultivating business culture, and fostering staff development, as well as leading The Brand Cloud, Nature’s Dream’s parent company.
Following the pioneering footsteps of founder Janine Bloor, Stubley has driven the UK distribution of Naturtint, the first Spanish hair colouring with a Biobased certificate granted by the USDA. Naturtint stands out as an ammonia-free, permanent gel colouring chosen by a multitude of people around the world. Its unique formula adds shine and hydration and 100% grey hair coverage, with an easy and quick application, plus a quinoa-enhanced, multi-care hair mask that increases colour fixation by 20%.
And Naturtint is just an example – Stubley and his team constantly seek innovative ways to continue improving consumers’ lives through the distribution of ‘naturally better’ products. Nature’s Dream’s carefully-selected portfolio of brands demonstrates the company’s commitment to providing consumers with expert care for their face, hair, and body, all the while focusing on exceeding consumer needs and offering real solutions that don’t compromise on quality, effectiveness, or value.
Patrick Folkes
This serial entrepreneur has made healthy products his trademark. As the co-founder of the UK’s first fruit smoothie brand, PJ’s, set up in 1995, Folkes’ natural, pure purees were ultimately sold to Pepsico, and his most recent venture is seeking to change the way we paint.
With sustainable lifestyles growing in popularity, Graphenstone was launched in 2018, focused on becoming the world’s cleanest, beautifully pigmented, toxin-free range of paints, ensuring excellent indoor air quality in your home and office. ‘Some of these newer paint brands window-dress what is in effect just another petro-chemical based, plastic paint, in the hope of steering the attention away from the product itself and towards the company selling the goods. We focus first and foremost on our product, how safe, sustainable, and clean it is for both people and the planet. This is where the true impact lies for our increasingly fragile climate – the paints industry is highly polluting, after all. Now is the time to paint differently,’ Folkes says.
Graphenstone is now recognised as one of the leading sustainable and natural mineral-based paints, free of plastics, microbeads, and man-made chemicals. ‘And here’s the clever bit – our ranges are all reinforced with Nobel Prize-winning, graphene nano-technology, made from pure inert carbon. It’s the strongest material on earth and its inclusion literally revolutionises these highly ecological products with Class 1 strength and washability, like a plastic paint but with a vastly cleaner profile. So, there’s no compromise in performance either. It’s a combination of trusted materials like lime, chalk, and clay with the latest technology,’ Folkes explains.
To him, it’s essential to provide consumers with independent, holistic validations, to back up the sustainability claims made by the brand – and Graphenstone has been awarded just that, with certifications from organisations like the Cradle-to-Cradle Institute. With over 1000 colours to choose from, their proudest projects include painting all of Facebook’s office towers in London, being the Cornish Eden Project’s preferred paint supplier, and plans to launch a new range with Ashmolean, Oxford, the world’s oldest public museum.
Amanda and Brinton
This couple met while pursuing MFAs at the Rhode Island School of Design, but after long careers in their respective fields – Brinton in film, Amanda in fashion – their mindsets changed drastically when they had their first child. ‘The moment we became parents, we were stunned by the waste of children’s 
products. We started noticing the discarded strollers, walkers, and ride-on toys sitting by the side of the road,’ they comment.
Today, Amanda and Brinton own and operate Big Tree Co., a furniture and toy brand offering sustainable, multi-stage products that grow with your family – because ‘tiny footsteps should have tiny footprints’. They designed the first walker for their second child, dreaming of something both functional and beautiful. But when their toddler climbed on and rode it through the house like a scooter, there was the ‘ah-ha!’ moment. ‘We went back to the original drawing and sketched as many different incarnations of the stroller as we could’ – the result was the BOOMERANG Walker Kit, launched in January of 2022. The kit is a baby walker that converts into a scooter, then a toddler bike, and finally a balance bike, four stages combined extending its lifespan from a few months to up to three years, all the while minimising waste.
Big Tree Co. is committed to being the most environmentally sound business they can be by sourcing FSC-certified, sustainably harvested wood, and 0% VOC, plant-based finishes. All of their packaging is plastic free, recycled, and recyclable, and they donate 1% of all sales to promote healthy reforestation and forest stewardship. And with three more products set to launch in the next year, Big Tree Co. are quickly becoming pioneers in solving the single-use dilemma in children’s products.
