RTIH: What was the motivation for establishing the company?
DH: Back in 2019, we looked at how the likes of Honey and Kiss are influencing purchasing behavior with their browser extensions, and asked, “How can we leverage the same technology to drive sustainable consumption and bridge the gap between users’ intentions and actions?” ”
If you ask them, 73% of people will tell you they want to buy sustainably – but don’t for four main reasons: uncertainty around cost, greenwashing, difficulty incorporating new features into their practices, or lack of awareness of sustainable options. First of all, there is.
If you think of ourselves as consumers, we’re inundated with choice and convenience and overwhelmed by our daily lives. It is very easy to slide down the list of priorities for sustainable choices.
Ecological anxiety is real, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless to affect change but that couldn’t be more wrong.
As consumers, we have real power to shape the world we want to live in with every decision we make. Every penny we spend is a voice for the world we want to live in. We want to inspire and encourage people to make positive decisions for the planet when they shop.
To put it simply, if everyone in the UK stopped buying single-use apples from the supermarket shelf and unwrapped apples were permanently sold, do we think supermarkets would continue to sell apples in plastic packaging?
RTIH: What has been the industry response so far?
DH: The response has been really positive. We only work with the best sustainable brands in the UK; We work hard to ensure that the products we recommend to our users are sustainable and good to use.
We want to reward our users for making planet-friendly choices by connecting them to great products that are truly sustainable options for whatever they’re looking at.
As a digital product, the Beagle Button makes it easy for consumers to avoid greenwashing and shop with confidence in sustainability, but the consumer experience extends to receiving a physical product. We work hard to ensure that we provide a seamless digital experience complete with a beautiful physical product that our users can use and have a positive experience with.
We are in the fortunate position of being able to champion all the great brands that are doing amazing work to develop sustainable alternatives. It’s just that the retail business is more sustainable.
Our growing user base are early adopters and we want to help mainstream sustainability marketing by taking from the 10% of the population who are ‘dark green’ and the 40% who are green, the 40% who are committed to making more sustainable choices. The people who will take him if he is offered a permanent election.
RT: What is your biggest challenge?
DH: We recognize that cost is a big challenge and stops many people from looking for sustainable options.
It’s a complicated issue at the best of times, only exacerbated by the high cost of living.
Trying to make more sustainable choices is not about deciding to throw out all the fast fashion items in your wardrobe and start over. Slowing down to slow and steady progress through deliberate steps. Normally, by trying to eat consciously, you start eating naturally and therefore spend less.
We want to make marketing sustainable and informed consumption as accessible as possible, and an important part of accessibility is affordability. We work with our brand partners to offer special offers through Beagle Button to save our users time and money.
RTIH: What is the biggest issue facing the online retail space today?
DH: Greenwashing. Unfortunately, as public awareness of environmental issues grows and more and more consumers demand planet-friendly products and services, so does the challenge of greenwashing brands. The rise of conscious consumers represents an attractive marketing opportunity.
As consumers, we are inundated with brands making vague claims about their sustainable credentials. It’s hard to pick the right positive influence from marketing spin. Greenwashing undermines all the great work that sustainable brands are doing to normalize conscious consumption.
Instead of rewarding consumers by trying to reduce their impact through positive choices on the planet, they trick them into buying inferior products that have a negative impact on the planet.
No one buys a product with a label that says “made by child labor” or “waste from this product pollutes topsoil.” The problem is that it doesn’t say so on the label and so we all always buy products that do that effectively.
To prevent this, we’ve researched thousands of the most ethical and environmentally friendly products so our users don’t have to. We recognize that cost is a big challenge and stops many people from looking for sustainable options.
We see how durable the products are. To do this, we score each product along the five pillars of sustainability: reduce waste, reduce emissions, support workers, protect animals and avoid chemical use. Products that pass these tests are scored and added to our database.
As our users browse online, we dig into this database to find products that match what they’re shopping for.
