The Good Emporium

With everyone stuck indoors due to isolation restrictions under COVID-19, we started to consider what ways we can make our lives and daily practices better for the planet. Recently, we had an opportunity to speak with André Eikmeier, founder and CEO of The Good Empire about The Good Emporium, an online store seeking to promote sustainable living.

What inspired you to create the Good Emporium and how has it developed since its creation?

I was getting more and more concerned with the state of the world – politically and just in principle – we can’t keep going with this zero-sum game where some “win” and others “lose”.

I started questioning my purpose.

“With all the privilege, knowledge, experience, reputation and connections I had, was my legacy building a wine company or was it my responsibility to do something more directly impactful?”

I started looking to see if the world had a strategy, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals looked to be the most comprehensive, accountable, supported strategy we had. I created Good Empire in service of these goals.

I pulled together a small team and started thinking up ways we could help change what needed changing and produce more sustainable products. The first thing we launched was Good Emporium, to encourage people to live more sustainably.

Could you tell us a little bit about your individual products and their uniqueness?

Our first product we stocked is our most popular product, the Huskee Cup. It’s a reusable coffee cup made from recycled husks of coffee beans. It’s beautiful and a really clever solution to both the husk waste and the disposable coffee cup problems.

We also stock bamboo straws from theotherstraw.com – they work with a community in Northern Vietnam to farm, harvest and manufacture the straws, so not only are they creating a sustainable solution to plastic straws, but they’re co-creating an industry for a community.

Earth Bottles were created by Dani Carr, so her high profile muso husband Ash Grunwald didn’t have to drink plastic bottled water on stage. Soon The Living End, Nahko Medicine for the People, Bobby Alu, Ziggy Alberts, and Midnight Oil were ordering Earth Bottles to take on the road.

Huskee Cups

What do you think is the key to creating change?

Believing that we can change and that it will make a difference, even a small one.

People need hope and they need to feel empowered. It’s hard to be the first. It’s not as hard if you’re doing it with thousands, or millions of people. We need to see the impact we’re having, even on a small scale.

You have a zero carbon, zero waste policy. Why do you think that is so important in 2020? How can other companies bring in this policy?

We do – that’s what we’re working towards. There are a lot of things still out of our control, particularly in shipping, so at the moment we’re only carbon neutral, but we’re constantly searching for better solutions, and minimising packaging waste, minimising plastic.

By setting yourself a goal and taking continuous steps toward that goal anyone can achieve it.

It’s important that we’re transparent about when we don’t get it right.

“We’re human, all of us. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep trying every day, every time, to get better.”

In an increasingly stressful time for the planet, how does your organisation try to offer solutions or aid in the climate crisis?

When we feel helpless it’s important to feel like we can do something ourselves. Fear can be a good wake-up call, but it also paralyses us. Hope can make us act.

We launched yearoftheplanet.org this year to gather and unite a million people to make changes in their lives and pledge to live more sustainably. Year of the Planet is a global movement of people pledging to make one small change in our lives each month for 12 months, to live more sustainably.

Our mission is to gather and unite 1 million people around the world, and together we could save over a billion single-use plastic bags, bottles, cups, straws and containers, destined for landfill and our beautiful oceans, and significantly reduce our own individual carbon footprints to help fight climate change.

It’s going really well – over 7000 people pledged already, all around the world.

What advice do you have to other activists and entrepreneurs who hope to inspire and motivate change in the world?

Do it! Don’t try to be perfect. Just do. One of our customers put it nicely:

“We don’t need a few people doing it perfectly, we need millions doing it imperfectly.”

There’s enough despair, what we need is hope, facts, action, encouragement.

David, Amber, Kat and André from The Good Emporium

What do you think are the small changes people can do to live more sustainably?

Well, we created a 12-step change program for Year of the Planet – including:

• Say no to disposable coffee cups, and switch to reusable

• Stop buying plastic bottled water, and carry a water bottle

• Stop using single-use plastic bags, and bring your own

• Cut back on food delivered in plastic containers, and say no to plastic straws

• Buy soap and shampoo in bars

• Switch to refillable cleaning product packaging

• Use beeswax and silicon food wraps

• Buy less plastic packaging, and recycle and compost

• Use less and recycle more paper

• Eat less meat

• Walk, ride and carpool more

• Switch to green energy

 How can people best support/get involved with your organisation?

Join and pledge at yearoftheplanet.org. Come and buy a Huskee cup or an Earth Bottle or something at thegoodemporium.com if you don’t have one. If you’re a start-up founder, you work in HR or culture, come and join Good Academy.

There are lots of ways to get involved. You can join our community at thegoodempire.com and we’ll keep you posted with all things going on. We’d love to hear from you!

WORDS: ANDRÉ EIKMEIER
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE GOOD EMPORIUM