The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
As with every business in the last year, disruption from COVID has been the biggest challenge – for us that means we can’t get to Cambodia, and many of our larger markets and expos were cancelled. We’ve been able to sell at many wonderful local artisan markets and have worked to increase our online presence instead.
Other challenges include trying to scale both a business and our social impact in Cambodia which require vastly different skill sets, but we have been running a social enterprise in Cambodia for the last seven years so have lot of experience to draw on. Finally, formulating skincare with zero synthetically derived ingredients has been super challenging and it took us nearly three years to develop adequately preserved moisturisers using plant-derived preservation instead of synthetic preservatives. This took many iterations but was worth doing to protect our waterways.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
The pros: having the autonomy and freedom to be a cause-driven business which keeps social and environmental impact at the heart of what we do, so that we can be a small part of the solution to global inequality; having a platform to raise awareness about the issues that matter to us like loss of global biodiversity; and lastly, having the flexibility to work differently and be creative.
The cons: having to work out how to do everything yourself – you have to wear a lot of different hats; you have to be prepared to work harder and longer hours and when you are working from home, it’s hard to switch off; and, of course, the financial risk you have to take on.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
We’re in the process of setting up a network of family coconut growers in Kampot that we ethically trade with, and we want to grow the network so we can positively impact as many families as possible – the more virgin coconut oil we sell, the more their income and living standards will improve, which will help them afford school education, better nutrition and access to healthcare, etc. We also have a goal of re-planting 10,000 coconut trees by 2030. Coconut trees fruit for over 70 years, are efficient at sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and their roots harbour diverse microorganisms, meaning extra income for families for generations to come, as well as environmental and soil-quality gains. We also donate virgin coconut oil to families with premature babies in Aotearoa, as research shows that it can help protect their under-developed skin barrier – we would love to grow so that we can provide our coconut oil to all of the 5000 premature babies born here each year.
Visit the Ethos website to find out more, and follow their inspiring journey on Facebook and Instagram.
