When we started out 10 years ago, many people saw our plantable pencil as a novelty item that got people talking. It’s great now to see companies setting net-zero targets and being much more serious about reducing their carbon emissions. When we started, it was often the CSR Manager pushing sustainability; now it’s the Board and management driving it from the top down. We’ve come a long way in ten years, but the reality remains – we’re still a long way from net-zero. Many businesses, large and small, are still grappling with fundamental issues about how to do it, because sustainability is complex.

As a startup and young business with a small product portfolio that has environmental sustainability as its focal point, we are more agile than most companies out there. But it’s not always been straightforward navigating the best and right course for sustainability in our business. Even when you want to do the right thing, it’s not necessarily clear what that is or how to get there. There’s been a lot of trial and error. I’m sure many companies can relate to that.

So, for larger organizations with far more complexity than ours, translating sustainability into action brings more challenges. We want to show others that it is possible and to share our journey because if a company like us can’t do it, then no-one can.

At SproutWorld, we often talk about wanting to be a lighthouse for sustainability, inspiring others to live and work more sustainably. I would say that we’re far ahead of other SMEs when it comes to sustainability. We see our role as leading by example and honestly sharing our learnings to make it easier for others to follow. After all, surely it’s better to be honest about being 20% of the way than claiming bigger numbers that are unrealistic and unachievable. So lately we’ve been asking ourselves how we can be more concrete when we say we want to be a lighthouse. Where can we best shine a light?

As an organization, while there are 100 things we’d like to do, we have finite resources, so we have to prioritize. Where can we make the biggest impact? In this next period of growth at SproutWorld, we’ve chosen to focus our energies on taking tangible actions and being as transparent as possible. For us, that is to accelerate our path to net-zero and to use blockchain to facilitate greater transparency throughout our value chain. Another example would be our afforestation project in Poland where our primary production site is located. This is tangible and measurable – we are giving back directly to areas where we operate.