A few years ago, I had the good fortune of taking an extended period of time off to travel the world. I visited surf spots everywhere from Costa Rica to Morocco to South Africa to Kauai and beyond. One thing that struck me no matter where I went was that we really are taking horrible care of our planet. No matter how pristine it was supposed to be, it just wasn’t. Garbage, garbage, and more garbage. Coral reefs bleached out and dying. Plastic bottles in the water. Litter strewn everywhere – even on the Kalalau Trail, an 11 mile hike on the Napali Coast in Kauai, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been – people threw their garbage everywhere. It’s like they said “screw paradise, carrying this garbage is inconvenient, I’m leaving it right here – no one will know!” And that only scratches the surface of the simple evidence I saw of how badly we abuse our planet.

So in an effort to avoid being preachy, I’ll move on. This eye-opening travel was followed up by the good fortune of working for Virgin, an organization that authentically cares about this planet. You could argue that a company that moves aircraft around as a primary means of generating revenue can’t possibly be good for the planet but the reality is that you can’t ride a bike from the United States to London so why not fly with an airline that devotes their profits to environmental investments and causes. This experience inspired me to consider what I should do with the next company in which I was involved, in terms of making a positive impact on the world.

While traveling, I also read a book called Let My People Go Surfing, by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia. This may have been the most enlightening business book I’ve ever read.  It also introduced me to an organization called 1% for the Planet.  Yvon is a lifelong environmentalist who dedicated a considerable amount of time and money trying to right some of the wrongs we’ve done to our home and creating awareness in the process.  As part of that, he helped establish 1% for the Planet, an organization that advocates “taxing” your business 1% of gross sales (meaning before you deduct any expenses) and dedicating that to charitable causes that aim to make the planet a better place.

You could argue that a startup company like ecomom, which isn’t yet profitable, shouldn’t be giving away precious dollars to anything other than building the business to profitability but I see it differently.

I believe that if the success of your business requires that you need to keep that 1%, you are probably in a business that is going to fail anyway.  So we just built it in as a tax that becomes part of our operating plan. But more importantly, it aligns us with the mission we’ve sworn to execute.

And that mission is helping moms (and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents and friends) keep their families safe. Safe from harmful chemicals and extraneous ingredients.  Arming them with information and products that are authentically good to put in, on, and around their growing families.  And at the same time, using our good fortune – of being able to build our dream company serving an audience for whom we have deep admiration and concern – to endow charities that also care as much as we do.

1% allows us to direct our charitable giving at a variety of organizations that are in complete alignment with us – caring about your family and the planet we all call home. In particular, we’ve chosen Healthy Child Healthy World as one of our partners. We’ve worked with members of Healthy Child’s team while creating our ecomom trusted criteria, the methodology we use to evaluate products for safety, utility and cost effectiveness. Members of our board of directors and advisors are involved in Healthy Child as well and we know that they care deeply about your family’s health and well-being.

I truly believe it’s possible to be both a consumer as well as a steward of the planet on which we all live. They are not mutually exclusive. But your purchasing behavior has ramifications. When you buy a cleaning product that you spray to apply, you are also applying it to your skin and lungs, not to mention your young children. When you eat something that has extraneous ingredients and chemicals, you are contributing to the destruction of our water supply, ground in which we grow things, and most likely not doing yourself any good either. But the good news is that you have a choice. You can choose to treat your planet like you treat your home. I’m guessing you clean your home on a semi-regular basis. What about taking the same care outside your home? What if you committed to picking up one piece of litter a day? What if you committed to eating one less thing a week that contained more than one ingredient you couldn’t pronounce? What if you committed to using cleansers that don’t exacerbate things like infant asthma?

What if …Ok, I’ll get off my soapbox and go back to work building a company that walks the walk. And when I walk outside today, I’ll pick up some garbage that I most definitely didn’t create. Then I’ll remind myself how fortunate I am to have a purpose. And that purpose is to make sure that my company’s 1% contribution grows to be meaningful enough that it solves real problems. Thank you for coming on that journey with me. I’m sure your family is the most important thing to you. We’ll never forget that and in doing so, I hope to continue to earn your business so we can make an impact for all of us.