Live your life. Do what you love, and do it often.
“We wrote a manifesto but we never wrote a business plan.”
Holstee founders Mike, Fabian and Dave quit their jobs to set off to live a fuller life including writing their famous and inspiring manifesto, able to be bought in a poster to remind us all that life is short and we better start living and sharing our passions.
http://shop.holstee.com/produtcts/holstee-manifesto-poster
Holstee started small in a tough time but their mission wasn’t just to create designs or clothes but a lifestyle. They were not just looking for a profit as they lent 10% of their first round sales to other entrepreneurs in a tough time. Holstee continued to grow with a higher purpose and passionate team. With upcycled and environmentally conscious goods, Holstee continues to innovate and design their lifestyle to do what they love, often. Holstee is not just about the products but also about sharing ideas and other people’s sustainable creations with their newsletter, videos and shop to their community.
Holstee also has a branch of a website called mylife.holstee.com that shares the stories of people touched by the Holstee lifestyle; living their lives, traveling, creating and experiencing new ideas and new people. Just reading a few of the stories something was sparked inside of myself that has been quietly sneaking around my soul since I began adolescence. MyLife project by Holstee is meant to do just that. These people whose lives have changed due to the Holstee manifesto or more importantly the message behind it, have wild traveling stories, crazy creative jobs, and most importantly smiling faces.
Their website shares their story and their ecological purpose as well as raises awareness about the environment and what we can all do to help. So next time you want to shop to improve your life, think about Holstee’s lifestyle design with a conscience.
Shop your ethics!
The Autonomie Project’s main purpose is not just to add style and creativity to American consumer’s lives but also to promote their fair-trade and sustainable project. They want to end the cycle of poverty. Talk about world peace.
Driven by their desire to start a grassroots movement toward global sustainability co-founders Anne O’Loughlin and Gina Williams’ purpose is to raise awareness and inspire their customers to take action and “uplift the world”.
Offering many different organic vegan recipes, pet fair-trade collections, gift ideas and fair-trade news updates, Autonomie Project’s blog is all about being innovative with the world. Autonomie sells apparels, jewelry, and pet and baby collections.
So stop talking about being a socially aware person and become a conscious consumer today! Shop Autonomie!
http://www.autonomieproject.com/fair_trade/about.html
Yellow Leaf
founder, Joe Demin
Join Yellow Leaf as they build a movement that strikes at the root of extreme poverty, deforestation & social injustice and helps Americans “Do Good. Relax.”
Yellow Leaf makes insanely cozy hammocks- technically engineered for extreme comfort, durability & strength, with the option to completely custom design your own one-of-a-kind handwoven hammock. In a hectic, increasingly plugged-in world, Yellow Leaf provides a guilt-free opportunity to relax and allow yourself to rejuvenate, spark your creativity and float for awhile.
As a social enterprise, Yellow Leaf strikes at the root of social inequity for marginalized hill tribe groups by creating high-wage jobs- empowering weavers and creating a ripple effect that combats associated social ills (e.g., exploitation, sex trafficking, disease, civil rights denials). By adapting weavers’ artisan skills to creating stylish eco-luxury hammocks, they enrich the entire community and tackle sustainability on a comprehensive level (economic, environmental, social & cultural).
True Herban Clothing
founders, Salim and Eric
True Herban Clothing is a premium green friendly, American made lifestyle brand with a social purpose. Bringing fashion, sustainability and social responsibility together into one natural brand experience. Fueled by forward thinking founders, Eric and Salim, a community of artists, interactive web experience and a sustainable and economical supply chain.
Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips
founder, Cameron Sheldrake
Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips was founded by Cameron Sheldrake in 2011. Cameron grew up on a sweet corn farm outside of Ithaca NY, and attended Babson College. He started cooking tasty, healthy chips made from real sweet corn while still at Babson. By his senior year he was working with manufacturers to mass produce chips. Sweet Corn Tortilla Chips will be available in three Sweet Corn based flavors: Sea Salt, Jalapeno and Sea Salt and Pepper.
Susty Party
founders, Jessica and Emily
Susty Party manufactures and distributes eco-friendly party supplies that meet environmental and social standards. With the idea that fun human connections and sustainability can co-exist, the company sells unique Susty Party branded products and other curated products.
Shea Yeleen International
founder, Rahama
Shea Yeleen International is a socially responsible enterprise that cares about the global community. Our mission is to benefit rural African communities and particularly women in West Africa through the production and sale of high quality shea butter products. Our skin care line includes body butters, lipbalms, and soaps, among other products, which contain between 100 – 25% unrefined shea butter. Shea Yeleen’s model is transforming the shea industry by strengthening the shea butter supply chain to benefit local shea producers, and supplying higher quality natural shea products directly to savvy consumers. One major misconception among beauty product consumers is that all shea butter is natural shea butter. This is not the case. The majority of mainstream shea butter products use an ultra-refined shea butter, which is processed with hexane and stripped of its natural therapeutic benefits. Through connecting shea producers directly to consumers Shea Yeleen is ensuring that not only are women paid a living wage, but also that the highest natural product is available to consumers.
Shady Oaks Organics
founders Nate, Devin and Leif
Founded in 2010, Shady Oaks Organics cultivates the finest quality specialty mushrooms using 100% organic inputs and methods. Our state of the art indoor production facility located in Newburyport, MA benefits from highly efficient equipment and environmentally conscious practices. Shady Oaks Organics provides New England with a nutritious and sustainably produced food product that otherwise can’t be sourced locally.
Runa
founders, Tyler and Dan
Rejuvenating, energizing and invigorating are just several of the words used to describe the tea manufactured by Runa. Designed by 26-year-olds Dan MacCombie and Tyler Gage, this four-person operation out of Brooklyn, NY and has been created to share an Ecuadorian ancestral tea with the world. This process allows members of struggling communities in Ecuador to both preserve their culture and generate income with which to feed their families.
Runa promotes healthy lifestyles and livelihoods by connecting producers and consumers through sustainable Amazonian products. Runa works with the Association and Fundacion Runa, an Ecuadorian non-profit organization, to ensure Fair Trade practices that promote the social and environmental integrity of guayusa production.
Raaka Virgin Chocolate
founder, Ryan Cheney
Raaka makes handcrafted chocolate from organic, fair trade cocoa beans in Brooklyn. Raaka’s virgin chocolate delivers flavors you simply can’t find in other chocolate because it’s made from unroasted cocoa beans. Where conventional chocolate starts with roasting cocoa beans, Raaka has created a low-temperature, stone-ground process which preserves the unique character of raw cocoa beans.
Raaka is committed to ethical trade and green business practices. It guarantees that cocoa farmers receive at minimum $500 above market price per metric ton of cacao beans. At today’s cocoa prices, this is equivalent to a 20% raise for cocoa farmers. Raaka’s packaging is printed with soy inks on FSC-certified, 100% post consumer recycled, chlorine-free paper that was processed by wind generated energy. All of its cocoa husk is donated to Edible Schoolyard NYC, an after-school gardening program at P.S. 216 in Brooklyn, for use as mulch and fertilizer.
Proxy Apparel
founder, Heatherjean Macneil
Proxy Apparel is an ethical fashion company dedicated to supporting women’s cooperatives around the world. Launched by thirty-year old Heatherjean MacNeil, this company is empowering and employing women through the sale of its trendy fair trade products, apparel, and gift line.
Proxy’s mission is to empower and employ women in sweatshop-free, sustainable world and this mission drive their daily effort and they are working to infuse it into every aspect of the Proxy brand.
Project Repat
founders, Nathan Rothstein and Ross Lohr
Repat turns second-hand t-shirts into fun and fashionable clothing accessories. Each product is ‘upcycled’—a way to add value to a recycled good- by a person making a fair and living wage around the world.
We believe in telling the t-shirt story of the world, embracing upcycle innovation and creating jobs with dignity. Our planets’ current rate of ‘new’ production is not sustainable, and it is time that we re-use the millions of t-shirts that we have already made, and in the process give more people the opportunity to work and live life with financial stability.
Perfect Fuel Chocolate
founders, Nicolas and Miles
Perfect Fuel Chocolate is raw dark chocolate that is certified Organic, Kosher, and sustainably produced. All products are made with low-glycemic palm sugar and their current chocolate includes ginseng for natural endurance. Perfect Fuel Chocolate has 74% cacao and 500mg of certified American ginseng in each serving. CEO and Founder Nicolas Warren’s mission is to create the “perfect snack for healthy, active life”
Click here to visit the Perfect Fuel Chocolate website!
