“Sparking action on climate change”.
Greenspark was created to tackle the greatest challenges facing the world today and to give their customers to tools to act! Over the two years since Greenspark came about, they’ve established three areas of focus:
- Planting trees for every online order.
- Offsetting carbon.
- Rescuing plastic from the landfill.
We’ve partnered with them primarily on their wonderful tree planting initiative, giving our Flo & Frankie customers the option to contribute to planting native tree across South America, every time they purchase online with us.
We talked to Lenny (Greenspark’s Co-Founder & CEO), to learn more about how he runs the business, his goals and what he loves about Greenspark.
Let’s get into it…
What did Greenspark do to celebrate Earth Day this year?
“For Earth Day 2023, we did a things differently. Firstly, over the weekend, our social media channels were dedicated to raising awareness of environmental protection, celebrating those who have made monumental changes for our planet and highlighting some of the most significant challenges our planet is facing today. Our marketing team has also been working closely with our community with 1-2-1 meetings, helping them to develop Earth-positive campaigns for Earth Day, so we were also helping these businesses reach as many people as possible over that time. For new sign-ups over the rest of Earth Month, we planted an extra 100 trees on their behalf as a thank you for joining the Greenspark community.”
What do you love most about Mother Earth?
“I love how resilient and beautiful Mother Earth is and how she provides us with so many resources that we need to survive. I love how diverse the ecosystems are and that we can take solace in nature wherever we go. I also love that Mother Earth is constantly evolving and changing, and that we can learn so much from her.”
Tell us a bit about how Greenspark began. What inspired you to set it up?
“Our journey into Greenspark happened rather serendipitously. My co-founders and I previously started and grew the then largest marketplace for sustainable products in the UK. Through this, we had the honour of working with 100s of sustainably minded businesses from across Europe and we kept hearing the same things: businesses want to do something positive but don’t know what to do, don’t know how to do it and don’t have the capacity to manage it in-house. We felt that this was an area where we could really add a lot of value and help companies achieve their goals while maximising our positive impact on our planet and its people.”
What made you choose to start a company in this industry?
“My journey into sustainability started about 7 years ago. I was on a trip to Iceland and bought a pair of beautiful handmade socks. We started speaking to the woman in the store and she told us that everything was made by hand and the wool had come from the sheep across the road. We found it absolutely amazing to be able to see the entire supply chain for my product literally right in front of us so clearly and to see the people the purchase would positively affect. Upon returning to the UK we thought that this was something we wanted to share with other people and immediately got to work on our first business.”
What are your company's goals?
“Our main goal is to maximise the positive social and environmental impact that businesses have, while also engaging their customers on their sustainability journey. We want to a world where every online action can have a positive impact.”
What does success look like for Greenspark?
“For me building a business has two main areas of success. Firstly of course the positive impact that we have on our planet is the main focus. Amazingly, in our very short existence our community has already planted over 1m trees, rescued over 2m plastic and offset 10k+ tonnes of CO2. In a few years we are aiming to increase these numbers 100 fold and also add additional impact areas that businesses can support such as days of access to clean water and coral reef protection. Secondly, it is really important to me to build a company where people like to work. I think that I have had so many bad / mediocre experiences with employers that I really want to create a place where innovation, creativity and feedback come together to allow us to build a truly world-changing company.”
What is your favourite part of being an entrepreneur?
“My favourite parts about being an entrepreneur are the daily challenges I get to solve and the amazing people that I have the honour to work with.”
Who is your biggest role model?
“One of my favourite business role models is Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments. In 2015 he decided that he was going to change the pay structure at his company and pay everyone $70,000 no matter what their role was. I read the story when it came out and it really stuck with me until today.”
What are your 3 favourite things about Greenspark.
The huge impact we are already having and the potential to exponentially grow this.
I absolutely love solving problems and working on large global issues.
The amazing people that I get to work with every day, from our awesome team to our supportive investors and partners.
How do you incorporate sustainability in your personal life?
I try to live as sustainably as I can within reason and this spans our entire household. From eating mostly plant based to never buying anything in single-use plastic packaging, always air-drying clothes rather than putting them in the dryer or only using sustainable shampoo. We all need to do our part!
What is the most inspiring project you’ve been involved with so far?
While I absolutely love all of the projects we partner with, one of my favourites is our Cookstoves project in Malawi. I really like the clear impact we are having through this project not only environmentally, but also from a social perspective. We keep expanding our project partners and I am really excited for some of the next ones in the pipeline, such as adding days of access to clean water.
What do you love the most about the Greenspark team?
At Greenspark we are all united by the fact that we want to make the world a better place and that has attracted a wonderful group of people that I love to work with every day. I am particularly impressed by our team's tenacity, innovative spirit and openness for constructive feedback.
