Jan enjoys the challenge of getting people who make their choices for other, conscious reasons to make a sustainable choice anyway, without even realising it. Almost 9 years ago, while Jan was researching cardboard in depth, the idea came up by chance over drinks: to develop a sustainable alternative in the form of a fully recyclable 2-person tent made of cardboard, called the KarTent. A sustainable product that pays attention not only to the type of material used, but also to how it can be recycled. After a festival, KarTent collects the used tents so that the cardboard can be reused. Further research showed that 1 in 4 tents were left behind on the site after a festival, and were therefore removed and destroyed as residual waste; a shame as well as bad for the environment!<\/p>\n
Cardboard turned out to be a suitable, cheaper and sustainable alternative not just for tents, but also for many other kinds of everyday products, such as toys, furniture, home accessories and office furniture. Over the past few years, hundreds of new cardboard products have been added, both own designs and made-to-order pieces, including the Eco-dreamer Intention tree.<\/p>\n
Jan believes manufacturers should increasingly develop products made entirely from one material, so-called mono-material products. \u201cConsumers are quite willing to separate their waste so it can be recycled, and local councils are happy to make that possible too. But when products are made from lots of different materials, even if each of those materials is recyclable on its own, the collection and recycling process becomes too complex and therefore unfeasible. That\u2019s why I think that if we try more and more, at product level, to make the whole product from one material, recycling and reuse will become not only possible, but also more feasible.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re currently on a quest to discover everything you could make from cardboard, and some of those things are really catching on. Mostly they\u2019re products that are handier because of their practical nature: a cheap bed that\u2019s easy to put together, no tools needed. Or a temporary curtain that you quickly need when moving house. A cardboard play kitchen instead of a plastic one, which children can colour in themselves and which you can put in the paper recycling bin after six months, once they\u2019ve finished playing with it,\u201d says Jan.<\/p>\n
With KarTent, Jan tries to offer sustainable alternatives, and he greatly admires entrepreneurs who tackle sustainability purely from an ideological vision and dare to make their business model subordinate to that vision. Entrepreneurs like this often focus first on solving an urgent problem, trusting that the rest will follow later. \u201cAbove all, I admire them because they don\u2019t seem to mind that much and they go for it with total conviction. Thanks to their strong belief in their ideological vision, they dare to walk the line between naivety and \u2018bad\u2019 entrepreneurship. A now well-known and successful example of this type of sustainable entrepreneur is Boyan Slat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not really a sustainability guru myself when it comes to my lifestyle,\u201d Jan admits. \u201cI still eat meat, I still drive a petrol car and I still fly, for example. For me it\u2019s mostly in the little things, like the fact that I don\u2019t buy much. And I repair a lot, mainly because I enjoy it, and that\u2019s my personal contribution for now. At the moment my priorities lie with KarTent, and I don\u2019t feel I have the headspace to take the next steps towards making my lifestyle more sustainable. As a consumer, I do think it\u2019s a shame that packaging-free shops and \u2018selling by the jar\u2019 haven\u2019t really taken off yet. That\u2019s something I would choose, because I believe it would make a real impact. I do think, though, that before it can really take off, two questions need answering: Can we adapt transport so that products don\u2019t need packaging to arrive undamaged? Can we, as consumers, accept a short shelf life?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThese days, many people actually feel they need to shield their new ideas during the development phase. At some point I started to feel a bit deflated by people who told me they had a good idea, but it wasn\u2019t \u2018ready to share\u2019 yet. By keeping it to yourself, you develop something that you want, not what other people want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jan Portheine<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Reaching a wider audience in a world full of different sustainability claims remains a challenge<\/h2>\n
According to Jan, sustainable entrepreneurs shouldn\u2019t communicate only about sustainability if they want to reach a wider audience. Changing the impact we humans have on the climate and the environment is often seen as something that takes years. It also feels less tangible. Sustainable alternatives often cost more than non-sustainable ones. That said, this has long since stopped being true across the board. These are all reasons why sustainability is still the deciding factor in buying behaviour for only some people. Most people only tend to change their behaviour when there are short-term, practical and\/or personal benefits to be gained. Jan sees examples of this in practice too: \u201cMany people have chosen to have solar panels installed on their roof because of the subsidy and the potential savings. That last point is exactly what gets discussed at a neighbourhood get-together or over Friday afternoon drinks. So if you bring something sustainable to market, you\u2019ll reach a small group, because they also care about sustainability, but you also have to appeal to the rest by communicating other practical benefits, to keep the whole thing profitable. And if you\u2019re working with new materials and\/or applications, consumers may have doubts due to a lack of experience. That\u2019s the case with our cardboard products too. Is it really strong enough? Will it hold? Will it last? How does it cope with moisture? I don\u2019t know anyone who has one, so why would I?\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, companies already communicate a great deal about sustainability, and in many different ways. The material is sustainably produced. CO2 emissions are offset elsewhere. It\u2019s recycled, so it\u2019s sustainable. It can be recycled, so it\u2019s sustainable. There are certainly also examples of things that mainly look sustainable but aren\u2019t. The sincerity of a sustainability claim is often hard to substantiate, partly because it\u2019s still difficult to measure. Calculating emissions across the entire supply chain is still a complex, theoretical exercise, and perhaps it isn\u2019t tangible enough for consumers either. \u2018Waste\u2019 might be a tangible first angle. How much waste is created during the entire life cycle of your product (from production to the end of its use by the consumer)? What kind of waste is it? Does it have to be destroyed? Or can it easily be reused, recycled or upcycled? Either way, it remains a complex playing field, where the challenge lies with businesses and the solution with the government.<\/p>\n
To stop the term \u2018sustainability\u2019 from losing even more of its value, companies also need to keep asking themselves critical questions and communicate transparently about them: \u2018To what extent is what they do truly sustainable? Which sustainable choices have they made? But also, which ones are they not making yet? Why not, and what\u2019s standing in their way?\u2019 \u201cI can be honest about it. We still ship with PostNL. We still have a diesel company van. We work with sustainable materials and use them to make sustainable alternatives, but we definitely don\u2019t have a fully sustainable supply chain yet. We can be open and honest about that. We\u2019re simply not financially independent enough for that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
An important lesson: share and collaborate when developing ideas<\/h2>\n
\u201cA valuable lesson I\u2019ve learned and want to share with other sustainable entrepreneurs is that when you have ideas, you need to seek out interaction with others, for example by pitching, executing and testing together with customers. At Delft University of Technology we didn\u2019t do that; I was surrounded by students, all with great ideas. We would work out all those ideas perfectly, and then you go to market with your product and discover that nobody wants it. These days, many people actually feel they need to shield their new ideas during the development phase. At some point I started to feel a bit deflated by people who told me they had a good idea, but it wasn\u2019t \u2018ready to share\u2019 yet. By keeping it to yourself, you develop something that you want, not what other people want. It\u2019s precisely interaction and collaboration that can make an idea better, and therefore successful too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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