Lunapads Blog

When I was much younger (and more foolish!), I used to think that business was a soulless activity that occupied itself exclusively with money, to the exclusion of all other forms of profit.  In many ways, Lunapads’ growth as a business is representative of my own journey in understanding that not only can be business be about way more than financial profit, but that business, like practically anything else, ultimately comes down to being about relationships.

While our recent trip to the Green Festival in San Francisco was planned primarily around attending to receive our Shining Light Award from Green America (thanks again to all our fans and customers who voted for us!), we extended our trip to attend the Green Business Conference.  The conference was a valuable reminder of the importance of establishing and building relationships.

At the conference, the first woman we heard speak was Margot Frasier, founder of Birkenstock USA .  After having met her several years ago, I was thrilled to see her still going strong.  Margo, along with another powerful woman entrepreneur Lisa Lorimer, she has just written Dealing With the Tough Stuff: Practical Wisdom for Running a Values-Driven Business.  Reminder to any friends who happen to read this: my birthday is coming up soon!

My choice of title for this blog post is a play on the name of a wonderful company: Life without Plastic, whose co-founder, Jay Sinha, we had the excellent fortune to meet at the Green Business Conference.  “Plastic-free” is an apt description for Jay on a metaphorical level as well - his authenticity and passion for a cleaner, healthier, more “plastic free” planet are indisputable and contagious.

Jay in turn led us to another anti-plastic superhero, blogger Beth Terry (aka Fake Plastic Fish).  Beth is one of those deceptively humble people who are in fact deeply powerful.  An accomplished activist, she single-handedly created the North American campaign to pressure Brita water filters to start taking back and recycling used filters.  Thank you, Beth, for being a living inspiration for how one person can make a massive difference. Here is a picture of Jay and Beth at the Green Festival.

I was also deeply impressed with Joshua Onysko, founder of Pangea Organics, who gave a rollicking presentation about his entrepreneurial journey: “7 lessons in 7 years.”  His all-organic line of skincare products is amazing, and his success as a leader in a crowded category is a credit to his chutzpah as much as his commitment to “eco-centric” skincare products.

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As many of you are already aware, Lunapads offers cost-priced Pads4Girls Kits that can be purchased by customers, which are then given to girls and birthing women in Africa.  The way it works is that we are approached by individuals or NGOs who work with girls and women in need (Imagine1Day Ethiopia and Shanti Uganda are two Vancouver-based examples) who we then add to the list of potential recipients for customer donations. Customers buy the kits, and we give them to the groups who then distribute them to the recipients - all good.

That said, like so many other things in life, Pads4Girls isn’t perfect.  First, the obvious problem that we can’t reach everyone who needs supplies.  Second, there are not always the necessary supporting resources available (education, water and stable living situations come to mind) in every community that make using cloth pads easy.  Finally, while Pads4Girls kits help thousands of girls and women, they are still being shipped half way around the world.  We are thrilled to tell you about a new initiative that takes this work several steps further, as well as how a little holiday gift-giving can help to support it.

Elizabeth Scharpf is as striking in person as her accomplishments and vision are on paper.  Tall, grounded, deeply compassionate and extremely smart were both my first and lasting impressions of her.  Elizabeth is the founder of Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE), a unique social profit that seeks to empower women and girls both physically and financially.

While working on economic policy (think World Bank and Clinton Foundation level) Elizabeth came to understand the impact that girls missing school and women missing work due to unmanaged menses was having.  She then asked herself what was going to make a bigger difference: the report that she was writing “that nobody was going to read anyway” (her words), or finding a way to help girls stay in school and women get back to work? Thus SHE was born.

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