Small Businesses Making a Big Impact

You’ve all heard recently about Beyond Meat hitting the market at over 3 times its expected price. It’s all over the media and there is enormous uproar about this ‘unicorn’ company. This is truly amazing – it represents a shift in the consumer psyche, an uprising by the plant-based movement, and it gives an all-round boost to those of us that care about helping people transition from ethically weighted meats to ones that are lighter on our animals and our planet. Beyond Meat is especially interesting because it is targeted not at the vegetarian market, but at those who eat meat. It’s a great company doing incredible things, but did you know there are also many smaller companies out there working hard to make our world a better place? I thought they deserved some recognition.

Raise the Bar
Do you love coffee? I get it, I do too. But when you think about it, there is an enormous amount of waste generated from our coffee consumption that goes straight to landfill and emits harmful greenhouse gases. That’s where Raise the Bar steps in. This is a company on a mission to stop used coffee grounds from going to waste in Australia. They take used coffee grounds from cafes and upcycle them into skincare products that are completely natural, and also have zero packaging! One of their key goals is to stop plastic pollution in the beauty industry. Most coffee scrubs on the market are made from freshly brewed coffee, but considering there is 75,000 tonnes of coffee grounds dumped in Aus each year, this business decided to make the most of it and create amazing, eco-friendly product!

Who Gives A Crap
This business gets me so excited. I just think it’s genius to take such an ordinary product like toilet paper and turn it into something special. Toilet paper is ubiquitous, and it’s something that rarely crosses our minds. Who Gives A Crap takes the boring out of toilet paper and makes it exciting. Their toilet paper, which can be purchased on a subscription plan, is made out of environmentally sustainable materials (and none of that awful plastic wrapping). The company started when the founders learned that only about 40% of the global population has access to a toilet, and that 289,000 children under 5 die each year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. This ignited a desire to do good in the world – as a result, Who Gives A Crap donates 50% of their profits to build toilets and improve sanitation in the developing world.

Will and Bear
What sets Will and Bear apart is their incredible partnership with trees.org. For each of their hats sold, 10 trees are planted on behalf of the consumer, making the world a greener place. It’s an incredible and sustainable way to give back to the community. Their hats are also noteworthy! They use 100% natural materials to create high-quality, unisex pieces (they do use Australian wool though so they are not vegan – perhaps one for you omnivores out there). To date, they have planted over 58 football fields worth of trees.

Salt Gypsy
Salt Gypsy is taking steps to make the world a better place by producing gorgeous swimwear separates from regenerated nylon yarn. There’s a bunch of environmental benefits from using this material. For every 10,000 tons of yarn, 70,000 barrels of crude oil are saved, 57,000 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions are saved and 12,600 tonnes of waste is reduced. They also have a program that allows you to send back your old cozzies so that they can recycle the parts! For those of you who are strong female athletes, Salt Gypsy has another initiative where sports women can sign up to be ambassadors – worth checking out for all you warriors!

Tsuno
Tsuno is a social enterprise that produces bamboo fibre sanitary pads and organic cotton tampons.  What I love about bamboo is that it is readily available, has a low demand on other resources and also is super absorbent and breathable! Tsuno donate 50% of their profits to charities that focus on empowering women, with a large emphasis on menstrual support and education. Their products are wrapped in biodegradable sleeves, which are then placed inside recyclable cardboard boxes – talk about sustainable! 

I love hearing about small business who are making a big impact on this world. If you have any favourites, please let me know in the comments below. It’s so important to support companies who make the world a better place. Remember, our dollars are our votes – use them wisely!