Today, Ethique turns NINE! Which in the business world is still very young. However, we’ve managed to pack in a whole lot of goodness in nine years.
We have loved creating fun, plastic-free products for nine years!. Whether you have been with us right from the start (hands up if you remember our Sorbet packaging? Or our small store on Wilson’s Rd?) or are just joining us now, we are so excited you have decided to join us and #giveupthebottle!
Let’s take a look at what you’ve helped us achieve so far.
1. Direct trade partnerships
We're big believers in paying a fair price for ingredients and making sure we care for the people who help us make our clever little bars. Direct trade ensures that local growers receive stable prices, reliable income and good working conditions. It has far reaching benefits for the communities' where our ingredients are produced. We believe this is the number one way businesses can change the world.
We prefer to have direct trade partnerships wherever possible. However, when the quantities we require of certain ingredients (e.g. rosehip oil) are too small to allow for this, so we purchase from fair trade sources.
Here are some of our Direct Trade Partnerships:
- Our coconut oil comes from Women in Business Development in Samoa.
- We work with Asili Oils to source fair trade moringa oil from Rwanda.
- Our cocoa butter comes from farming cooperatives in Ghana.
- Plantus provides our fair trade babassu and cupuacu oils from South America.
2. Donating 2% of annual sales to charity and over 200 organisations supported
We're on a mission to regenerate our planet through business. So, we have committed to donating 2% of our annual sales to conservation, animal welfare and environmental groups undertaking incredible work. Learn more here.
After nine years in business and giving back in this way, we are excited to announce something we have been working on very soon 🌏
3. Over 13 million single-use plastic bottles saved from landfill!
When Brianne West (CEO and Founder of Ethique) first started out, her dream was to save one million plastic bottles from ending up in landfills around the world by 2020. So, 13 million plastic bottles saved has us feeling all kinds of love and support – thank you. Our next goal? half a billion by 2030!
4. Over 290,000+ trees planted
In honour of Earth Day in 2020, we started one of our favourite regeneration projects. For every order placed on our website, we would plant a tree (or mangrove), with our partner Ecologi, a gold standard accredited carbon credit provider. Ecologi choose where the need is greatest and work with NGOS, indigenous people and locals to plant seedlings in places such as Madagascar and Sri Lanka. Check out our forest here!
Our goal is to plant 400,000 trees by the end of 2021. This would offset over 26,000 tons of carbon dioxide, which is over double our current footprint.
5. We’re Climate Positive
As of March 2021, we are proud to offset over 120% of our carbon emissions! This means we are paying to drawdown carbon we have not emitted in the first place. Because we know carbon offsetting isn’t the solution for climate change, we measure our carbon footprint every year and are always putting in place new initiatives to ensure we continue to minimise our emissions. To learn more about what we are doing so far, head here:
6. Super Soap Project
We launched the Super Soap Project on April 21st 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The mission: to donate bars of hand soap to vulnerable communities, across New Zealand and the South Pacific. We initially pledged 10,000 bars and matched every bar purchased by our customers from ethique.com with a ‘Super Soap’ bar donation to these vulnerable communities.
The project grew and as of September 2021, we have donated over 40,000 bars of ‘Super Soap’!
7. 25,000+ 5star ratings & reviews
How great is this! We are so happy that you love our plastic-free products just as much as we do but equally, we want to thank anyone who has ever left a review. Sharing your honest reviews of our products helps others consider #givingupthebottle.
8. Best of the World BCorp for the fourth year running
This means Ethique is in the top 5% of all BCorps globally! BCorp is essentially a fair-trade score for the entire business so we are stoked to have this title.
9. Over 10.5 million litres of water saved💧
With over 13 million plastic bottles saved from landfill, this sees our water saving impact swoosh in at 10.5 million litres.
Well, what a list! We’ve packed so much in the last nine years, and we can’t wait to see what else we can achieve in the next nine years and beyond! From our goal to save 500 million plastic bottles by 2030, continuing to grow our forest and using business to change the world and more.
We want to thank you for all of your support and for helping us showcase the positive impact that businesses can and should have on people and the planet. We truly couldn’t do this without your support to #giveupthebottle.
~Team Ethique 💚
