INTERVIEW #45 GREEN LITTLE HEART
Based in: Stockholm, Sweden
Founded in: 2021
Founded by: Therese Lundquist, Michelene Lindbland, Christina Brodin & Karen Lundquist
Shop at: www.greenlittleheart.com
Instagram: @greenlittleheart
Price range: 5 – 2700 EU
Welcome to A Sustainable Closet, what is Green Little Heart and why was in founded? What separates you from other online marketplaces?
Green Little Heart is an Impact platform and sustainable Marketplace. We bridge that gap between conscious consumers and conscious brands. We make it easier for consumers to find conscious brands in one-go-to platform. We have our own certification process to ensure that no green washing takes place, and we also have a very curated selection of brands. We work with inspirational education so that the understanding why it is so important to live a more sustainable lifestyle becomes clearer. Today we have 107 amazing sustainable and ethical brands connected to our platform. We plant a tree for each transaction, we have enabled donations in our check-out and we double every donation coming in. So far we have planted close to 4000 trees. 23,8 % of our customers chose to donate and 70 % of our brands are female founded. So, we think that’s a great Marketplace.
How do you source what products to sell, both in terms of categories but also the brands you pick?
We search online and we follow greenfluencers. Also, now after having been in business for a year – many brands have started to come to us. Then they go through our onboarding process of interviews and our sustainability questionnaire.
What has been the major challenge with starting a marketplace with the purpose to only provide sustainable products?
Since we do not sell with discounts, it’s hard to compete with the massive discounts normally exciting in e-commerce. We do not want to short-sighted, nor do we want to take away the brand value from our amazing brands. But, of course, it’s hard to penetrate the market. We do believe our strategy is the right one and the more sustainable one in many ways. Also, there’s a phenomenon called value-action gap or attitude-behaviour gap – meaning there’s a big gap between our actions and our values. We think that Green Little Heart has a big role to play in bridging that gap as well with education and inspiration.
What are your best-selling products and who is your typical costumer?
Our category sustainable & organic skincare is very popular. Brands who work with a zero-waste approach and female founded business is also popular. Our next development area is pre-loved and food. Also, our sneakers in new innovative sustain-tech materials – are also popular. Accessories like bags and smaller pieces like toilet bags are also very popular in materials such as Econyl which are ghost nets saved from the ocean and recycled into a strong nylon called Econyl. It’s hard – many lovely things and brands.
What is your view of the challenges with more sales happening online, where costumers might pick the wrong products which results in increased transportation and so on? How to make e-commerce more sustainable?
First of all, free returns is not the way forward and most likely will disappear – as free shipping. Just by changing that, we can change consumer behaviours. Then using fossil free transportation and no plastic packaging is essential for a transition to a more sustainable e-commerce. Also, the heavy discounting is not a way forward and hopefully we decrease that in the market in general. Also, diving deeper – we have to completely change our view on how to work with fashion. Collections, producing before a purchase is made – are also not a circular business model and we need to move away from the collection thinking in Fashion. We need to work more with pre-loved, Made to Order, Upcycling etc and not producing a big collection in the beginning of a season and then send it to landfills in Chile after heavy discounting. That is utterly wrong, and we simply must stop that.
What do you think needs to change now in the fashion industry to in general make it more sustainable? What can politicians, voters and companies do?
Well, think part of the answer lies above – but to make that transition faster, also legislation needs to push this change faster. The Fashion industry needs to take responsibility for their full production chain and the footprint that follows – which is true for all industries and not just the Fashion industry of course. Also, we as consumers should really use our power to unfollow, or follow, use our “wallet” as a weapon and not interact with the obvious bad choices like fast fashion. I also think we need to work with “carrots” and encourage change and show that sustainable fashion can be really nice and trendy. We need to lift good examples and reward those, at least with a follow action and a like. It matters. We also have a saying “No one can do everything – but everyone can do something” – to also encourage change and not the feeling of hopelessness.
