Sustainable Ecommerce

Welcome to Episode 55 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep55

This week’s show is the fourth one in our mini series on rethinking waste. 

So far we’ve touched on ocean plastic and how Plastic Bank is rethinking that as a resource is generating significant social and economic opportunity. And we’ve looked at mechanical recycling of textiles with Upparel, and how they are actively stitching together supply chains for the recycled fibre, then chemical recycling with Blocktexx where blends are being split out and turned into new PET chips and organic paste to be used in soil regeneration projects.

So today we move onto footwear.  110 million pairs of shoes are imported into Australia every year, and basically without rethinking used footwear as a resource, they all end in landfill.   My guest today has been spearheading the recycling of shoes since 2010 and I think you will agree has an extraordinary depth of experience and pedigree in the business-for-good movement. 

John Elliott is the founder of Save Our Soles, they’re the organisation behind every shoe collection box you maybe have seen or used at stores like Foot Locker, Rebel Sport and just about everyone else.

We learn about the Save our Soles process in today’s show, but with John’s deep industry experience I found the whole conversation fascinating, even if it does get a little philosophical in places.

Welcome to Episode 54!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep54

This week is our third episode in our mini-series on waste, this week we look at absolutely emerging technology in relation to chemical recycling of textiles.

Chemical recycling per se isn’t new.  There are a few amazing companies overseas like Renewcel that can take cellulosic textiles and recycle those into new yarn. But until now, there has never been a solution to blends.

Enter my guest this week. Adrian Jones is the co-founder of Queensland-based chemical recycling company BlockTexx. Despite being what I think you would still call a start-up, they’ve already proved they can handle 85% of the typical textile fibre types, and are handling about 4000 tonnes of textiles this year.

They have developed an incredibly exciting technology that I think we’ll see becoming more and more important part of the textile recycling supply chain in the years to come.

Welcome to Episode 53 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep53

Today’s show is the second episode in our mini-series on rethinking waste, and we turn our focus from plastic to mechanically recycled textiles, taking a look at the downstream uses for the recycled material and how you can get involved. 

Now you may be aware of some of the alarming statistics of this already, but the average Australian throws out 23KG of textiles per year, giving us the dubious honour or being the second largest consumer of textiles per capita in the world, behind the US.

And if you sum those number up, with 26.3 Million people in Australia, that adds up to something like 604 million KG of textile waste every year. Clearly, as brands we need and responsibility to change this equation.

So to help on that path, my guest today is Michael Elias, founder of Upparel. As you’ll hear, the demand for domestic recycling of textiles here in Australia has enabled Michael to transition from ecommerce brand selling subscription socks to Australia’s largest mechanical textile recycler, in just a couple of years.  

A little like Plastic Bank that we spoke to last week on the show, Upparel have a strong focus on transparency and traceability when it comes to knowing exactly what your brand is recycling, and where that recycled material ends up. 

Perhaps most relevantly for the topic of this series, one of the most exciting parts of Upparel’s ecosystem is how they’re constantly innovating and working with downstream partners to rethink ‘waste textiles’ as a resource, replacing other virgin materials in a range of products from the fillers in boxing bags to home insulation.

That means that whether your waste problem related to overstock, returns, deadstock, post consumer product or even staff uniforms, Upparel has a solution to help you keep material out of landfill.

Welcome to Episode 52 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep52

My guest today is Shaun Frankson, co-Founder of Plastic Bank.  They’re a Canadian technology company on a mission to stop plastic before it reaches the ocean. 

To date the partnerships they’ve enabled between brands and coastal communities have prevented almost 4 billion bottles worth of plastic from entering the ocean, 88 million KG.

They’re not just collecting that plastic from shorelines and dumping into landfill though, they’re fundamentally rethinking waste as a resource and turning it back into recycled flake at scale.

While big brands can get involved and actually work with them to secure a predictable source of fully traceable averted plastic to help replace virgin plastics, any brand in any region can get involved, make an impact in the plastic pollution problem as well as huge social impact in the lives of families and communities most affected by the issue.

Welcome to Episode 51 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep51

This week we go a little further afield and we cross the waves to the US for our founder interview.  Mckenna Haz is a young Canadian entrepreneur, building a sustainable activewear brand call SEAAV.  Now activewear is an immensely crowded market with giants like Underarmour, 2XL, Lululemon and countless others, not to mention a raft of yoga-specialist brands, which is the space Mckenna started in as recently as 2020.  The fact that in the face of that competition she’s seen significant success already, and indeed been able secure venture funding to scale, suggests she’s doing some things really really well.  

Now, looking from the outside, I had a fair idea that the magic was in the way she’s leveraging her sustainability-oriented brand story.  Some of you may know that we’ve recently completed a huge marketing effectiveness assessment of 500 brands, and ranked them all according to how well we think they’re communicating to the market. 

Despite being a small fish in the very large activewear ocean, Mckenna’s brand SEAAV came in the top 10, which immediately tells us that she’s really doing a great job of slicing up the message so it’s effective in the customer journey. But I was excited to chat with her on the show to hear from the founder herself about how important story is, and how she’s leveraging that story to drive growth in everything from following to sales.

What follows I think is a really unique insight into how this sustainability story thing can be leveraged, not just on the store, but in attracting influencers, investors and building community.

Welcome to Episode 50 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep50

Link to Post: https://tinyurl.com/fiftyeps

It’s no coincidence that we’ve accepted HeapsGood packaging as our first sponsor.  Aside from being one of the easiest onramps for a brand to start doing this more sustainably, sustainable packaging is actually a really important element and vehicle for your brand story. Yet as we started to review the data from our huge analysis of 500 sustainable brands, we discovered that the VAST majority are either missing the opportunity to leverage that opportunity, or failing to communicate what they are doing to their customers.  That’s bad because not only is packaging a pain point for eco-conscious consumers, but there’s evidence now that those same customers are seeking that information when choosing brands to buy from.

So I’ve invited Adam Sarfati from HeapsGood back on the show this week, to talk about that this specifically, provide some guidance on the realities of sustainable packaging options, and some exciting news to share around using packaging as a story telling tool that I know you’re going to want to take advantage of.

Welcome to Episode 49 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep49

My guest today is the founder of another powerfully purpose-driven brand in the home cleaning and personal care space. Bonnie McQueen is the founder of Keeper Clean, a startup focused on helping consumers reduce single use plastics. 

I really do think Australia is leading the way in this area, we’ve had a few brands running in this space on the show already, each a little bit different in their implementation. 

To me Bonnie’s story epitomises the ‘must do’ spirit of a sustainability entrepreneur, and I felt her passion for influencing change and educating customers is truly inspiring. I also found that her approach to social media is instructive. She is committed to actually being seen as the face of the brand and creating content that resonates with and educates her audience on sustainability. 

In my view she’s doing an incredible job of leveraging her influence as the leader of her brand for the health of our planet, and that’s an approach I think we can all learn from.

Welcome to Episode 48 of Sustainable Ecommerce!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep48

Over the past few months I’ve been chatting with brands not just here in Australia & NZ but also in the US and UK, and it’s been really interesting to contrast the focus point for sustainability between the hemispheres. Just purely from my own observations, the attention down under is a lot more on waste reduction and the plastics problem, whereas in the northern hemisphere and the UK in particular, it’s on the pathway to Net Zero.   

Now, we’ve already covered carbon neutrality a little bit on the show.  I did a kind of carbon offsets for dummies guide all the way back in Episode 7, and then we had an actual expert, Richie Mulder from Carbon Halo come on in Episode 36, who explained in much more detail how to get to Carbon Neutral.

But seeing this significantly elevated focus on Net Zero from UK brands has left me feeling a little bit like we might be dropping the ball down here.  When I asked a few eCommerce brands why they hadn’t done more to tackle their carbon footprint, the answer was some flavour of “It sounds really complicated and I don’t know where to start”.   Knowing the theory is a far cry from actually getting going.

So is there in fact, and easy way to gets started.  I went on a bit of hunt, and I think my guest today actually has a solution.   Afonso Firmo is one of the Co-Founders of NetNada, and Australian startup designed to make the complex world of carbon accounting dead simple. 

So, without stealing any thunder from Afonso, if baselining your footprint and getting your brand onto the pathway to carbon neutrality and maybe even Net Zero is something that’s been on to do list, this is the Episode that’s going to give you the keys to doing that.

Welcome to Episode 47 of the Sustainable Ecommerce Podcast!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep47

It’s time to talk about customer experience. Specifically, the experience your customer gets through their buying journey.

Obviously a great experience helps you convert visitors into buyers, and buyers into raving fans, but the rub is that its notoriously difficult to get a true read on how your customers actually feel about their experience, especially people who didn’t purchase.  

And what about customer’s perception of your sustainability? If you’re a sustainable brand you MUST get your story across in a way that eco-conscious consumers can understand it – but how do you measure that? How can you be sure your messaging is giving them the information you think it is?

Well, enter today’s guests.  Andy Evans is the Co-Founder of Humii, a Mystery Shopping Network designed to give online retailers and ecommerce brands unparalleled end to end visibility of their customer experience. Andy’s joined today by Mariele Osthus, Head of Strategy at Humii, and together we take a look at how customer experience evaluation performed by their mystery shoppers is helping brands of all sizes highlight some astonishing gaps in real life customer experiences.  Plus, we explore how their extensive data set is enabling customers-eye view of how a brands UX stacks up against their competitors, in a way that’s never been possible before. 

And, please do listen right to the end, because we share a very exciting announcement about a world first program being run right here in Australia to help sustainable brands specifically.

Welcome to Episode 46!

https://sustainable-ecom.com/ep46

My guest today is Jo Mercer, founder or start up slow fashion brand Matilda Life.  Jo has spent her entire career in retail, and is perhaps most famous for her highly successful Jo Mercer Shoes retail chain.  She’s coming back into market now with a lifestyle women’s apparel brand built around the DNA of Australian made, ethical and sustainable.

We talk about the strongly and passionately held values that are the driving force behind Matilda Life, and what it means being a values driven brand.  Not just in what they make and sell, but also in how that weaves though all of what they do, including things like how they’re setting up their upcoming bricks & mortar store, how they choose partners and perhaps most crucially, how they intend to influence customers towards a healthier and more sustainable approach to purchasing clothing.

After chatting with Jo, I’m left with the enduring belief that Matilda Life, despite still being a tiny startup, serves up a great model for the fundamental values any ethical & sustainable brand can follow.