You decide — should Gen-Z demand 100% sustainable businesses?

All three brands are relatively small and yet the owners all claim that they are doing everything in their power to stand by their values and meet Gen Zers’ demands: 100% sustainability and inclusivity. But not every company is striving for the same. Perhaps because it’s more complicated than it might seem.

Ombar is working on a new project to collaborate with an environmental NGO in Ecuador to help reforest and protect the rainforest that has been lost. But Turner says it won’t be easy to measure the number of emissions it offsets.

He underlines the main issues within the chocolate industry. ‘85% of forests in the Ivory Coast have been lost since 1990,’ he says. ‘A major driver for this is that cocoa farmers continue to live in poverty in West African countries, where 70% of the world’s cocoa comes from.’

He adds that another symptom of this poverty is child slavery.

One company that came into the spotlight this spring was Nestlé. While it successfully launched its first vegan KitKat bar, much of the plant-based community has voted to boycott the product due to Nestlé’s history of questionable practices.

In 2020, for example, the company decided to cut ties between KitKat and Fairtrade, which Fairtrade deemed as ‘profoundly disappointing’.

Raphel says he supports big companies who decide to launch plant-based products. But, if this is done unsustainably, ‘it kind of misses the point’.

Pressure to guarantee full sustainability is piling up on big corporates like Nestlé, and this has given way to a stark rise in greenwashing. Although this summer will see a set of new guidelines put in place across Europe to avoid misleading customers, giants such as Nestlé may escape any mandatory rules.

Regarding the vegan KitKat launch, Hocknell acknowledges its benefits but says it could be seen as a PR stunt. ‘Which can be dangerous,’ she says. ‘Because it gives consumers a false idea of how the company operates.’

But she says owning a fully sustainable business — for the planet and people — is a challenge.

‘As a brand, you’re creating something that leaves your control and is placed in the hands of the customer,’ she explains. ‘The customer is responsible for caring for that piece of clothing and for disposing of it sustainably.’ This is almost impossible to monitor.

Ombar’s Turner agrees that ultimately, it’s up to consumers to decide how they spend their money. But the brand does monitor as much as it can, especially throughout its supply chain. Its cocoa supply chain manager, Paola, lives in Ecuador and liaises with farmers from whom Ombar purchases its cocoa directly.

Sizing up is also something companies have to consider. As they expand overseas, it can become increasingly difficult for chains to be monitored, but Turner says if the business model is created with genuine principles from the beginning, it can be done. ‘I think a lot of it comes down to a willingness to invest in doing things differently,’ he says.

The demand is there. In 2019, Trade Fair, Live Fair surveyed 5,000 consumers across Europe and found that 84% buy products based on global poverty and 77% on gender inequality.

So why aren’t more companies going in the same direction as Ombar?

‘It may seem easy but I think running a business is pretty tough, particularly when you’re a smaller operation,’ he continues.

When you’re smaller, costs are usually higher too. WeAreNativ and Holee Cowless are both emerging brands, and obtaining the B Corp Certification as well as becoming carbon neutral are things that they are striving for, but it will take time.

And how do we get customers to pay more for their products? When it comes to chocolate, Turner says: ‘This is a tricky one.’

Over time, he describes the way our palettes have adapted to ‘what we think chocolate is’, which is often a cheap product. ‘There’s no way this should be the case; it’s often cheaper than a bag of crisps made with potatoes grown up the road.’

Cheap chocolate is linked to huge poverty in cocoa-growing countries, with farmers living on less than one dollar a day. He knows that there is a market full of people prepared to pay a bit more for an ethical product. ‘But it has to be convenient,’ he says.

Thus, it comes down to companies trusting their customers and whether they’re willing to take the risk.

Being ethical and sustainable are values that Turner deems personally important to him. ‘Maybe some other companies don’t feel the same way, or are pushing ethics and sustainability with an ulterior motive,’ he says. ‘[But] it’s a no brainer for us.’