Arbre
Interview with the founders
Photos provided by Arbre
1. What’s your business, and how is it sustainable?
Arbre is a sustainable sun care brand on a mission to create innovative and inclusive SPF products that are reef safe and come in recyclable packaging.
2. Did you start out as a sustainable business, or did you shift to a more sustainable model later on? Either way, what was your motivation to be a sustainable business?
We always wanted to incorporate sustainability into our business model, since many traditional sunscreen products are harmful to life underwater. In fact, the main chemical active ingredients, avobenzone and oxybenzone, used in sunscreen contributes to up to 10% of coral reef bleaching worldwide. Along with creating a reef safe sun care product, we also wanted to ensure that our packaging is sustainable. Our debut product, Spruce, which is a powder dry shampoo with SPF 20, comes in completely recyclable packaging!
3. What is the biggest compliment you’ve been given about your sustainable business?
A challenge we have faced is balancing cost and sustainability. Many sustainable personal care products tend to be more expensive than their less sustainable counterparts. While developing Spruce, we wanted to keep our customers’ desire for an affordable product in mind, so it was a bit of a challenge to find materials that met this criteria.
4. What were some of the challenges you experienced when developing a sustainable business?
The biggest compliment we receive is on our packaging. People are often impressed by both the functionality and sustainability of our packaging, while being aesthetic. Often cosmetics and personal care products come in bulky plastic packaging that gets thrown in the garbage. At Arbre we are trying to show that the ingredients in your products can be sustainable, and the packaging it comes in can be recycled!
5. What words of wisdom or advice do you have for businesses and/or citizens on how to implement more sustainable practices and lifestyles?
Our advice would be to think outside the box. Oftentimes businesses think of just their carbon footprint when it comes to sustainable practices but there are many other factors that can be taken into account. We recommend drawing inspiration from the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In your daily life, we recommend starting small! In your day to day, there are often many small changes that can be made to living a more sustainable lifestyle, like bringing a reusable water bottle and coffee mug to work.
Nuez Acres
Interview with the founders, Nancy and Anthony
Photos provided by Nuez Acres
1. What’s your business, and how is it sustainable?
At Nuez Acres™, we are proud to be Canada’s only Indigenous Pure Pecan Oil Waterless beauty product provider. Our devotion to clean and green cosmetics is evident in the premium all-natural ingredients – such as our own homegrown pecans – that are used in all of our products. Grown on my family’s farm in Mexico, ensuring sustainability from the ground is key to our brand by using solar panels for energy and water systems to ensure there is no waste; this ensures generations of pecans to come. Moreover, our unique waterless serums use 0% water while maintaining premium quality and effectiveness! Additionally, taking it one step further with regards to sustainability, we have chosen to use recyclable packaging materials such as glass bottles reducing any potential mission on landfills. Nuez Acres is leading the way for green beauty products with a commitment to creating luxurious sustainability.
2. Did you start out as a sustainable business, or did you shift to a more sustainable model later on? Either way, what was your motivation to be a sustainable business?
Nuez Acres was initially founded with the goal of providing a unique and innovative way to sell my father’s homegrown pecans. However, over time this has evolved into embracing sustainability as an essential part of our business model. Our motivation to transition to green and vegan practices multiplefold; Not only do we wish to protect our environment and its resources, but also prioritize natural beauty products which are better for the health overall. We strive to provide products that are ethical not just in terms of the plant-based ingredients used, but through their minimal water footprint and biodegradable packaging. Nuez Acres beauty line is contributing positive changes towards a more sustainable Earth.
3. What is the biggest compliment you’ve been given about your sustainable business?
At Nuez Acres, we encountered a variety of difficulties when trying to create a sustainable, green business model. Developing planet-friendly ingredients that kept product quality high was complex, as was innovating packaging and production methods that would lessen waste while increasing the recyclability factor. With the addition of sustainability costs on top of our efforts to price ourselves in an already saturated beauty market, these obstacles felt daunting. However, we quickly realized that open communication provided us with the tools we needed to successfully navigate these hurdles at Nuez Acres.
4. What were some of the challenges you experienced when developing a sustainable business?
It was a great honor for us to be given the opportunity to participate in a trade mission between Arizona and Canada last year. And, upon meeting indigenous leaders from Arizona during the mission, we were overwhelmed with their positive feedback on our green business model and waterless movement. To be able to share knowledge with them and learn more about their own unique challenges gave us a sense of purpose that we’d like to cultivate in the future as well. It was an invaluable experience that truly highlighted the importance of sustainable practices, and how deeply even eco-conscious products can affect those who are most vulnerable. For us, it was a powerful reminder that drives us every day – to continue making products that are sustainable, gentle on the environment, and beneficial for everyone.
5. What words of wisdom or advice do you have for businesses and/or citizens on how to implement more sustainable practices and lifestyles?
In my experience, I think the best way for both businesses and citizens to move towards more sustainable practices is to focus on making small, simple changes. These changes might include substituting a reusable item for something single-use or finding ways to reduce energy consumption at home and the workplace. Even if it’s just committing to refilling a reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled water every day, these small steps can add up over time and make a real difference in helping create a more sustainable lifestyle. Furthermore, join forces within your community and support initiatives that are already fostering positive impact on environmental conservation. Together we have the power to drive real change!
Spill the Dirt Flower Truck
Interview with the founder, Dana
Photos provided by Spill the Dirt Flower Truck
1. What’s your business, and how is it sustainable?
Spill The Dirt Flower Truck is a mobile flower shop. We service the Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph area, offering a unique flower buying experience. You can build your own bouquet out of the back of our pink 1959 GMC truck named Andie. Our goal is to encourage new connections in our community, maintain meaningful relationships and create inspiring spaces through our unique mobile experiences and top-quality flowers.
We use environmentally friendly packaging for all of our bouquets at the truck. Deciding on packaging was an important step when I started my business. I wanted material that was environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing and budget friendly (so long icky cellophane and plastic ribbon, hello Kraft paper and twine). Kraft paper and twine was everything I was looking for; recyclable and reusable, classic and simple, allowing the flowers to be the stars of the show and affordable.
2. Did you start out as a sustainable business, or did you shift to a more sustainable model later on? Either way, what was your motivation to be a sustainable business?
When I first started my business, I’ll be honest, I didn’t know much about the impact the floral industry had on the environment. Our packaging was just a teeny tiny part of what we could be doing. On top of pesticide and water usage and the plastic packaging wholesale flowers arrive in, imported flowers can generate major carbon emissions due to the hundreds of miles they travel, in refrigerated air and ground transportation. Going into our third year of business, we are expanding and will be growing a large chunk of the flowers we sell next season. Growing our own flowers will help eliminate some of these negative environmental impacts and help us get our flowers from field to vase quickly, in a sustainable manner. We can implement sustainable practices like crop rotation, water management, composting, plastic free packaging and all natural pest control methods.
The motivation to becoming a more sustainable business was by following a few regenerative gardening accounts on social media. The more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know and that I needed to do better. I was motivated to take the first step and begin to educate myself on becoming a more eco friendly and sustainable business.
3. What is the biggest compliment you’ve been given about your sustainable business?
The biggest compliment I’ve been given about my sustainable business is when someone picks out one single flower on the entire truck and gushes over how gorgeous it is, and it’s a flower I’ve grown. You just can’t beat locally grown flowers. They are a labour of love. Each and every bloom is celebrated and cared for from seed to flower and my heart does a backflip every time someone compliments a flower I’ve grown.
4. What were some of the challenges you experienced when developing a sustainable business?
I think one of the biggest challenges I face now with shifting to a more sustainable business model, is imposter syndrome. Even though I am implementing these new sustainable practices and continuously learning more, there’s always the fear of looking like a fraud, appearing poorly educated or like I’m still not doing enough. Expanding my growing space this fall took quite a bit of time and money and I’m committing to growing as much locally grown product as I can, but I still won’t be 100% local. Imposter syndrome has a funny way of sneaking up and making you feel like you shouldn’t share your accomplishments. And that’s just plain silly. I’ve made some big changes here that matter and I will be making a difference, big or small.
5. What words of wisdom or advice do you have for businesses and/or citizens on how to implement more sustainable practices and lifestyles?
My advice for businesses or citizens that wish to implement more sustainable practices and lifestyles is to start small! Baby steps! A baby step in the right direction is movement. You can’t possibly know every single thing about every topic to start having conversations about the differences you can make on our planet. And it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Do what you can, every little change helps and matters!
Follow Spill the Dirt Flower Truck on Instagram and Facebook @spillthedirtflowertruck.
Say no to single-use plastic in Canada 