From an Ad Writer to Fighting Overconsumption
This founder wants you to buy less, live more
Today’s sustainable snapshot👇🏽
From an Ad Writer to Fighting Overconsumption
Quiz Time!
Startup of the Week: Vok Bikes
5 Sustainable Brands That I Recently Discovered
3 Stories That Lifted My Spirits This Week
From an Ad Writer to Fighting Overconsumption
Tara Button was writing TV ads in the early 2010s. Ads that pushed people to buy new stuff. While writing these ads, she also became an impulsive shopper, buying things that she was writing about — easy to fall into that trap. You or I would probably have done the same things.
On her 30th birthday, Tara’s sister Jules gifted her a Le Creuset cooking pot. If you are coming across Le Creuset for the first time, you’re not alone! It’s a French-Belgian maker of cookware, and its products are meant to last!
Every time Tara used the pot, she had the same feeling:
If only all my possessions were like this, I’d never have to replace anything. In fact, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to trust everything we bought not to let us down and end up as landfill. Think of the environmental benefits!
After pondering over this for months, she built a basic website and decided to call it Buy Me Once. She started reading the fine print behind products and slowly curated a list of products that would last — you buy them once and then just continue using them.
In 2016, a tweet and eventually an article in The Telegraph made Buy Me Once viral enough to convince Tara to leave her full-time job and spread the Buy Me Once mission.
By 2017, the website had 2000 products, and Tara had a book deal with Harper Collins.
Fast forward to today:
On the website, you would only find long-lasting products that the team can stand behind.
They examine the products themselves, their manufacturing story, and develop meaningful relationships with the makers before listing the products on the site.
If they find that a product is not up to scratch, they immediately take it off the website. It also offers exclusive warranties on the products.
Here are some of the cool, durable products I discovered on Buy Me Once:
⌛ Time for the quiz of the week
Note: Answer at the end of the newsletter. No one (including me) can see your response, so feel free to vote. 😉
✨ Startup of the Week: Vok Bikes
European nations (and North American ones as well) use a lot of vans. These vans have ample cargo capacity and are used for last-mile deliveries, restaurant deliveries, fresh goods supplies, facility management, and are even used by municipalities. But,
66% of these vans operate with less than half of their cargo space used.
They are taking up space in urban centers are creating unnecessary emissions.
The solution:
Vok Bikes are a durable, low-maintenance, and agile alternative to vans. According to the brand, these electric cargo bikes have:
44% faster delivery time
64% more cost efficient
95% less CO₂ than a petrol car
The compact design of the bike makes it easy to park anywhere without blocking traffic, and it can easily navigate through restricted zones as well.
These bikes now operate in 14 European countries and are used by brands like IKEA, which offers Vok bikes for customer rentals in Utrecht and Stockholm.
Solving the urban logistics challenge, one bike at a time!
✅ 5 Sustainable Brands That I Recently Discovered
🇬🇧 Elvis & Kresse: Using rescued fire hoses to make bags.
🇫🇮 Stora Enso: Making batteries out of wood.
🇫🇷 Planet of the Grapes: Converting waste from winemaking into bags and belts.
🇺🇸 KENT: World’s first compostable underwear.
🇦🇺 BearHug: Reusable pallet wraps to replace single-use plastic.
😹 3 Stories That Lifted My Spirits This Week
Modhera in Gujarat has become India’s first village fully powered by solar energy day and night, thanks to over 1,300 rooftop panels, solar carports, and a 15 MWh battery system.
DJI drones are revolutionizing trash collection on Mount Everest by completing in just six minutes what takes Sherpas four hours of dangerous hiking.
Ranchers in Mexico are transforming from jaguar hunters to conservationists. Through the Viviendo con Felinos program, they now earn thousands of dollars for documenting wild cat sightings on their land around the Northern Jaguar Preserve in Sonora.
Give that 💚 a little tap if this edition helped you learn something new about sustainability and climate change. Have a good weekend, and see you next week :)