David Ward started The Nurturing Co in 2018 with the aim to be one of the first in the world to offer retailer-ready single-use home-care products in plastic-free packaging. Recently, the startup scored a coup by being the first company to receive seed investment from the Razer Green Fund. With the growth that Bambooloo — its brand of bamboo-based paper products — is experiencing, The Nurturing Co is looking to take its products to the United States in the fourth quarter of this year. It has also been invited to launch with Amazon under its LaunchPad programme.
What will Razer’s investment bring to your business?
Having Razer as a strategic investor has already helped propel the company forward in terms of overall awareness of what we are building and doing. With its track record of success internationally as a direct-to-consumer and online retailer, Razer will be able to help us better navigate the road ahead. To better support this current growth trajectory, we will be raising funding in September and Razer has already indicated that it will join the round with additional investment.
What is your broad-ranging initiative of sustainability?
The company began with this single statement: “We will create and sell products that are sustainable, less impacting to the world and reduce or remove one-time-use plastics from society and the environment.” Till today, we have not deviated from our core. We are committed as a business to reduce the amount of single-use plastics and, through design, cut down on the amount of resources required to produce our products.
At what point on your sustainability roadmap are you now?
In terms of achieving zero waste through product design, I would say we are at about 75 per cent. We continue to seek improvements and find material options that can be better upcycled, reused; and that will produce no impact to the environment once allowed to degrade.
We are also at the beginning of a programme that will include manufacturing data points on our packaging to help educate consumers on the benefits of purchasing a more sustainable product.
Any advice for entrepreneurs thinking of starting a business based on sustainability?
It’s time to think of sustainability as a collective aim and not merely a unique business proposition. Whether it’s through product design or the way we do business, we need to think about how we can create the least amount of impact on the environment. Hopefully, this will be the norm in years to come. If you’re just starting out and wondering how you can be a sustainable venture, ask yourself questions like, “Is what I’m planning better than what people are used to?”, “Am I able to offer a better product that will have less impact on the planet?” and “Is my post-use packaging or waste going to be less impacting than what’s currently used by traditional brands?”