Sustainability in Business: Eco-friendly Products, Eco-Friendly Processes
Corporate businesses are doing the best they can to make their business more environmentally friendly. Sustainability is desired across fields — sustainable fashion, renewable energy, sustainable production. And then there are small businesses which are eco-friendly to their core, throughout all their processes, and almost as an afterthought. Bamboolik is really proud to be one of them!
What Makes a Sustainable Business?
Expect no boring environmental lesson here; the definition of sustainable business can be always looked up on Wikipedia. In this article, we‘d like to show you how we approach sustainability in business in Bamboolik.
We’re eco–friendly, sustainable, and we do care about the social aspects of our production. These are not just buzzwords for us — Bamboolik has always been like that! All our processes are set in a way that makes the most (environmental) sense to us. We manufacture cloth diapers and thus help save 1.5 tons of non-biodegradable waste per child. We sell period panties, menstrual cups and reusable sanitary pads & panty liners which reduce the waste of used period products by 150 kg per woman.
With such an emphasis on eco-friendliness, having products sent over half the world wouldn’t make sense to us. All our products are made in the Czech Republic, where we’re from, and all the materials we use are of Czech or European origin. Part of our production is manufactured in sheltered workshops which employ handicapped people.
In 2020, we opened our own sewing factory/workshop in which we employ women with small children and single mothers. The social aspect of our business became even more prominent because of that!
In 2023, Bamboolik is 11 years old and managed to add another sustainability award to its collection. In 2019 and 2020, we received the highest award of the Czech Business for Society platform — we became Trendsetters for small businesses. This year, we tried our luck in the SME EnterPRIZE competition, which awards sustainable businesses in Czechia (of small and medium range). We’re thrilled to report we placed in the top 10 out of 99 nominees.
It’s almost ironic that while corporations are working really hard to adjust their processes to become more environmentally friendly, more sustainable, and are looking for ways to enhance their social diversity, these things are as natural as breathing for Bamboolik. Take packing orders for example — in pre-used cardboard boxes and degradable bags made of corn starch. We never thought about doing it any other way. Used cardboard is a common household waste which people are getting rid of on a daily basis. Why not use it again? We even encourage our customers (or just people from our neighbourhood) to bring cardboard boxes to our premises — we’ll send them back to rotation.
Eco-friendly Diapers, Eco-friendly Products, Eco-friendly Business
Naturally, used cardboard would not be enough. Let’s name a more significant achievement then: In 2018, we managed to relocate our production of PUL to Europe (PUL is laminated polyester which we use to make our cloth diapers waterproof). Since the very beginning of Bamboolik, we’ve always strived to be as local as possible; unfortunately with PUL, we used to struggle with finding a European supplier that would fulfill our requirements quality-wise. For years, we had our PUL supplied from the US. We worked hard on changing that, and in 2018, we finally succeeded. We found a supplier in Europe with which we developed the perfect fabric, meeting all our expectations. Now, the PUL we use is produced entirely in Europe.
And this is what matters the most when it comes to sustainable business! Only 100 years ago, the Czech Republic was world-renowned for its textile production. Brno (Bamboolik’s hometown and Czechia’s second largest city) was even called “Czech Manchester”. That is all gone now as European textile industry is being crushed by cheap Asian production. That has a negative economic impact — loss of business opportunities and workplaces, loss of knowledge and expertise. Companies like Bamboolik help revive the Czech textile industry. This is why sustainability is so important.
Want to learn more? Have a look at the About Us page or find out about how cloth diapers help save the environment. Did you know that our diapers have contributed to reducing 20,000 tons of non-biodegradable waste so far?