How do I prioritize sustainability? Honestly, it all starts with living and working in Seattle. Our city started curbside recycling in 1988, so it’s just what we do here. But, having said that, it’s just the beginning.

To build a company that doesn’t harm the environment, promotes social equality and is economically viable—ain’t easy. We certainly make mistakes, but we are mindful in every choice we make.
 
We didn’t even really know what “sustainability” was in the beginning. We were just trying to create products that would not harm ourselves, or the environment.

We’ve never been about using traditional beauty fear tactics with our customers, finger-wagging, or portraying perfection. We push ourselves to do better, while accepting some economic realities that slow some initiatives—but we keep pushing forward even though we know we’re not perfect.

Taking Many Small Steps

We stay away from plastic in our packaging, wherever there are alternatives, use curbside recycling, common sense, and added TerraCycle in our facility to recycle gloves, hair nets & small, weird plastic. 

Recently, we added Ridwell service, which takes away even more difficult plastics from our operation. We also work with Pact Collective—an organization to collect hard-to-recycle beauty and wellness packaging. And we offset the very little plastic we use in manufacturing with an annual donation to Plastic Bank to help rid the oceans of disgusting plastic.
 
And while I’d like to say that we made every sustainability choice with intention, sometimes we lucked out because some really bad choices were just out of our reach financially.

We are so glad those wasteful, little one-time sample packets were so expensive, that they were out of reach. Thankfully the universe saved us from that bad choice.
 
Here at Kari Gran, whether it’s your skincare or the environment, we believe that success comes in taking many small steps.

Pact Collective to the Rescue

The beauty and wellness industry generates over 120 billion packages each year, and because of the way they’re designed, only a fraction gets recycled.

Through the nonprofit Pact Collective, Kari Gran customers can ship their hard-to-recycle pumps, spray tops, lip whip tops, and makeup packaging directly to Pact. Customers can also drop them off at our Seattle location. Pact also has several participating in-store locations across Canada and the U.S. where you can drop off your empties.

We are proud of this partnership and committed to our membership to Pact by covering the costs to recycle our products.

See also: Pact Collects Over 20k Pounds of Hard-to-Recycle Beauty Packaging

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kari Gran is the founder of her natural, organic, and sustainably conscious skincare line. As a founding member of the non-profit Pact, she has also aligned with other beauty companies to provide recycling options for hard-to-recycle beauty products such as pumps and spritzers, even turning her Seattle headquarters into a drop-off facility.

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