Greenwashing, a term that is used when companies attempt to portray themselves as more sustainable than they are, became a widespread phenomenon last year thanks to social media and the media in general. Both journalists and consumers have become more critical of green statements and promises. This is a positive development because it means that the only way to fight greenwashing is through documentation.

At Sprout World we’ve seen an increasing interest for documentation from our customers over the past 1-2 years and this has led us to invest in further documentation of our green statements. So, to give you an example, when we say that we work on reducing our CO2 footprint, what does that mean? We had a Life Cycle Assessment by a third party of the CO2 emissions of our Sprout pencils so we can see exactly what we emit and where to improve. This year we will continue documenting every step we take forward.

Greenwashing, a term that is used when companies attempt to portray themselves as more sustainable than they are, became a widespread phenomenon last year thanks to social media and the media in general. Both journalists and consumers have become more critical of green statements and promises. This is a positive development because it means that the only way to fight greenwashing is through documentation.

At Sprout World we’ve seen an increasing interest for documentation from our customers over the past 1-2 years and this has led us to invest in further documentation of our green statements. So, to give you an example, when we say that we work on reducing our CO2 footprint, what does that mean? We had a Life Cycle Assessment by a third party of the CO2 emissions of our Sprout pencils so we can see exactly what we emit and where to improve. This year we will continue documenting every step we take forward.

Another positive trend that continues this year is the growing demand for sustainable products. A study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), commissioned by WWF in 2021, shows a 71% rise in popularity of searches for sustainable goods over the past five years (2016-2020) with continuing growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report titled “An Eco-wakening: Measuring global awareness, engagement and action for nature” shows a surge in consumer clicks for sustainable goods in high-income countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada.
This trend will continue in 2022. Sustainability has gone from niche demand to mainstream for many consumers.

Covid-19 paused the trend of reducing packaging and single use plastic and despite the pandemic, the trend is back.

A good is example is France banning plastic packaging for nearly all fruit and vegetables from January 2022. The government published a list of about 30 fruits and vegetables that will have to be sold without plastic packaging.

It estimated that 37% of fruit and vegetables are sold with packaging and it is expected that the measure will prevent more than one billion useless plastic packaging items per year.

Also the UK Government aims to reduce (virgin) plastic. It has announced a new tax from April 2022, which will apply to any plastic packaging made or imported into the UK that doesn’t meet a minimum threshold of at least 30 per cent recycled materials.

Several brands in the cosmetic industry have looked into minimum packaging, recycled packaging or have in-store drop-offs in partnership with a company like TerraCycle, which specialises in hard-to-recycle packaging and materials.

At Sprout World we haven’t only looked at how to reduce packaging but also how to create products with a minimum waste. This goes both for our plantable Sprout pencils and makeup pencils that can have a new life after use instead of ending up in the trash.

Technology is our best friend when it comes to finding solutions to the climate crisis, and with each year, technology improves and becomes more affordable.
Traditional industries with a heavy climate footprint are implementing new, greener technologies faster than we thought possible – with a huge impact as a result.

An example is the world leading Danish shipping conglomerate Maersk (where I started as a trainee many years ago). Maersk will introduce the first in a groundbreaking series of 8 large ocean-going container vessels capable of being operated on carbon neutral methanol. The vessels will have a capacity of approx. 16,000 containers. The series will replace older vessels, generating annual CO2 emissions savings of around 1 million tonnes.

Maersk is a first mover in the industry, but more will follow, simply because the clients demand a more sustainable supply chain.

One of the key words when it comes to sustainability is transparency. Being transparent as a company means to show both clients and partners where you are now, what your goals are, how you are working on them and what you can improve. Nobody is perfect, so it doesn’t mean that you have to be 100% sustainable in all aspects, it just means that you invite your clients onboard on your journey.

At Sprout World we are working to implement blockchain technology that makes it possible to track down every part of our products. You will be able to see where the tree from the pencil comes from and this goes also for the seeds in the capsule. This gives both our business clients and private consumers a chance to know more about the product they are buying.

Michael Stausholm was born and raised in Denmark, one of the most sustainable countries in the world, which makes sustainability a natural business approach and value for him.

Stausholm has been working with sustainability in the business world for more than 20 years. He has lived in Asia for 14 years where he worked as a consultant for companies such as Nike and Walmart. He founded Sprout World in 2013 and is the founder and CEO of the company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Michael Stausholm was included in the Worthy List in 2021 by the American publisher Worth Media. It’s a list that honors 100 entrepreneurs in the world who run their business and do good at the same time.

Sprout World is a company which mission is to inspire more sustainability in everyday life. The company has 30 employees and offices in Copenhagen, Denmark and Boston, USA. Sprout World has sold over 35 million plantable Sprout pencils in 80 countries to brands such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Ikea, Marriott, WWF and Michelle Obama. In 2021 Sprout World expanded their patent on “plantable writing instruments” to also cover plantable high quality makeup pencils. Consumers and businesses can get more information and purchase the products on out website

Sprout’s pencils are carbon positive. In short, it means that when we make our pencils, carbon-wise, we take more out of the atmosphere than we create through production. Let’s take a look at what that is and how we achieve it.

When businesses balance the amount of carbon they create by offsetting it, usually by planting trees or paying into programs that do that for them, they are carbon neutral. When they take more carbon dioxide out of the environment than they create, they are carbon positive.

You can say they are carbon positive – meaning they contribute in a positive way to the environment’s carbon dioxide emissions – or you could say they are carbon negative, because their production results in less carbon dioxide overall. Either way, the result is the same: it’s good for the planet.

Let’s have a quick refresher. Carbon dioxide is a key player in the Greenhouse Effect. Having excess CO2 in the atmosphere exacerbates this effect, creating a blanket of gases that trap the sun’s heat and energy in an atmospheric bubble. This warms the planet and the oceans, affecting life on earth and causing changes in weather patterns that affect climate change around the world.

We carefully analyse the lifecycle of our pencils and monitor our production emissions with third party assurance throughout the whole value chain. From the very start, where a tree is chopped down in the Polish state forest, through to our production suppliers where the pencil is made, a few kilometers away in Poland, and our post-production facility where the seed capsule is added, we have undertaken life cycle analysis to calculate our emissions and how we can reduce them.

We give back to where we take from. In 2021, we bought a forest and have bought C02 units from it, meaning that until we have sold 426m pencils, will be carbon neutral. For reference, we sold 6m pencils in 2019, so that total is a long way away.

When trees and plants are growing, they absorb carbon dioxide from the air which is fixed in the plant tissue. When you chop down a tree and build with it, it stores that C02; however, if you burn it, the C02 is released into the atmosphere and has a negative impact on the planet. As a lot of post-consumer waste is burned, it’s critical that we all consider the lifespan of our products and what happens after they have been used.

Our pencils have a second life as plants. After use, they don’t go into landfill or incinerators, because they can be put in a flowerpot or garden with some compost, and grow into plants. It’s even better if you can use the pencil shavings too. When used, up to 70% of the carbon dioxide is stored in the soil rather than released into the atmosphere. But if you throw it out, 100% is released into the atmosphere.

It’s the same story for every product, not just our pencils. So it’s important not just to use and plant our pencils, but to consider the life cycle of everything you buy and what will happen to it after use.

Why it makes sense not only to plant pencils but also makeup pencils

First of all, because we think it’s a brilliant idea. It’s a natural development of the successful plantable graphite pencil that we launched in 2013 and has become a symbol of sustainability, with over 35 million pieces sold worldwide. Just like the pencil, the makeup pencils are also covered by our global patent on “plantable writing instruments”.

The market for makeup pencils is huge and constantly growing, with 10-12 billion produced each year. Most makeup products, including eyeliners, are made with chemicals and plastics that generate piles of waste when the product is finished with. We want to challenge that by designing high quality makeup that can get a second life and give back to the planet instead of ending up in the trash.

If we can meet the growing demand for more eco-friendly makeup for our customers and at the same time push the industry in a greener direction, we’ve reached one of our goals.

Our plantable makeup pencils are made to inspire you to take more sustainable actions in your everyday life. If you can plant an eyeliner after use, what else can you do for the environment? It’s just one of many little changes you can make.

The makeup pencil boxes are ideal for gifting because they send a message that both the giver and the receiver care for the planet. Not only is the makeup pencil developed with high quality materials, sustainably certified wood, natural formula, allergy tested and without microplastics, it’s also produced and hand assembled in the EU under ethical working conditions by a brand that has sustainability in the very DNA of our business. We do much more than required because we want to be at the forefront and show that it’s possible to build a business successfully while doing good at the same time.

We know that planting a makeup pencil stub won’t save the world, but we also know that we can make a difference at a more holistic level, simply by being an inspiration for so many people and companies.

First of all, Sprout is not a makeup brand and we are not trying to compete with huge players such as L’Oreal, Chanel or Lancôme. Collaborate yes, but not compete. The ideal role for us would be acting as a small independent brand that brings innovation, a breath of fresh air and a new way of doing things into the cosmetic industry. Innovation and sustainability are highly needed values on this “use and throw” market that is luckily starting to change now.

We’re still in the process of mapping out how far we want to go with the makeup series. Everything related to new colors, products or sales channels will be decided in 2022 when we have more knowledge about sales, markets, and countries.

That would be a dream scenario, for sure - I wouldn’t mind seeing 12-14 billion makeup pencils growing into wildflowers next year!

On a more realistic note, we already see a very positive reception of the products from both consumers, influencers, and the press. Trendhunter, a world-leading publication that spots new trends, has called our Sprout pencil “the future of sustainable makeup” and we’ve had coverage in a huge number of global magazines, which is all very exciting. Consumers purchase the products on Amazon and in our European web shop, and the pattern is typically that they try it first and then purchase more, presumably for gifts.

It’s true that we cannot sell the pencils to the same customer base that buys our pencils. It’s an interesting challenge for us that forces us to look for other sales channels, for example direct online and retail partnerships as well as inflight sales.

- on why the patent is the cornerstone of my business.

SproutWorld is a business that’s built around a worldwide patent on “plantable writing instruments”. CEO and founder Michael Stausholm explains what the patents mean to his business, brand, and clients, and how SproutWorld works continuously to protect it.

In 2012, a group of MIT students was given the task to invent “a sustainable office tool of tomorrow”. They came up with the idea of a plantable pencil. The students had taken out a provisional patent when they put the pencil up on Kickstarter, and I found it there.
I liked the idea so much that I purchased the IP rights from the students and founded SproutWorld.

I applied (through lawyers) for patents in Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, China, and several other markets in Asia. The last of these (the Chinese patent) was granted in March 2020. SproutWorld also has a globally registered trademark, including in smaller markets such as India and Vietnam, for items like stationary, kitchen utensils and makeup. I had absolutely no experience in IP or patents when I founded SproutWorld. My background is in shipping and I spent 15 years in Asia in production and sales. We hired some very good U.S. patent lawyers and trademark lawyers as well.

It took us years to get all the patents we applied for, which is a challenge because being patent pending only makes it much harder to pursue copyists. Only once patents are granted like we have now, can you pursue legal action against copy sellers.
Patents are also very costly, both the patents but also the lawyer’s fees. We’ve spent at least €200.000 getting our patents. It also took a very long time, especially for the Chinese patent, which took almost eight years in total. Australia was first, and the U.S. patent was granted in 2016 or 2017.

It’s the cornerstone in my business. It ensures that nobody can make the same plantable products as we do, and this uniqueness is the DNA of our brand. It’s what our customers pay for and the guarantee that our pencils and eyeliners are original, of high quality, sustainable and produced in the EU and USA under ethical working conditions.

We do a lot, and on a daily basis. It’s necessary because while platforms like Amazon and Alibaba have helped to grow SproutWorld, they have also contributed to widespread counterfeiting, which not only comes with financial loss but reputational harm.

Counterfeit products are a huge problem, especially in China and other Asian countries. We started using an artificial intelligence software called Red Points about two years ago. It manages all the platforms – Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Etsy – and whenever it encounters a copied product or a trademark or copyright infringement, it will directly contact both the seller and the platform. Very often, it manages to remove the counterfeits right away, and that has helped us tremendously. Not only do we no longer need an in-house person doing it, but it also catches many more products than we ever could. It searches 24-7 for fakes.

I think a lot of startups are hesitant to take out patents and trademarks because it costs a lot of money up front, but the truth is it will cost more money in the long run not to.
SproutWorld is a good example—if we didn’t have the patent, we would never have got to work with great brands like Bank of America, Disney, Coca Cola or IKEA, because they would be able to buy a cheap copy from China at half the cost. We have these customers because we have the patents, and an IP is important to those companies. So, it’s not a question of whether you can afford to take out an IP, it’s a question of whether you can afford not to.

I do think consumers have a responsibility; fake copies are only such a big industry because there’s a huge demand. By buying counterfeited products of mediocre quality, you as a consumer choose to disregard what the product is made of, how it’s produced and under what circumstances. You also support the loss of jobs and potentially helping illegal organizations. I still think most people that buy copies are unaware of this and that’s why more regulation and especially more information about the downsides of counterfeit products is required.