Startup Circle: How is ONEarth catering to all sustainable lifestyle needs on one platform?

Nitika Sonkhiya, co-founder and CEO of ONEarth, feels very strongly about sustainable living and reducing waste. She has created the company to serve this purpose. The products at ONEarth are designed to be beautiful, cost-effective, and a big replacement for daily single-use plastic products. “We want to give our customers choices and practical alternatives for zero waste and sustainable living,” states Nitika.

Read her interaction with CiOL about the startup ONEarth and the future of sustainable lifestyle products.

What is OnEarth about? The story behind the unique name?

ONEarth is about providing cost-effective, durable, eco-friendly products that are an alternative to single-use plastic, to promote sustainable living. Packaging included! We are a one-stop eco shop for all things Earth-friendly. Our vision is to be able to service all your sustainable lifestyle needs in one place.

The name is intended to simply remind people that we have only ONE Earth and we should do our bit to save and protect it - now!

Tell us about the team.

Our core team comprises 4 environment enthusiasts: Nitika Sonkhiya, Co-Founder and CEO, Sameesh Nayyar, Co-Founder and CFO, Siddhartha Gupta, Growth and Business Development and Sonal Gupta, Marketing and Collaborations. An engineer by profession, I have always been interested in recycling, reusing and transforming waste to wealth. After spending a few years working in HCL Technologies and Genpact Headstrong Capital Markets, I decided to pursue my passion for sustainability and became an entrepreneur!

Sameesh, on the other hand, has 20 years of corporate experience, in project management and service delivery. He has been really passionate about building something. He has a very positive attitude towards life and believes we can achieve anything if we are focused. Thus, he also keeps the team motivated during tough times. Siddhartha has joined us recently and has been a great asset to the team. He is an IIT Kanpur graduate and has an MBA degree from the Indian School of Business. He has 6+ years of corporate experience in BD, sales and growth. Siddhartha is also a prolific writer, and he handles the content, growth and business development for ONEarth.

The most energetic member of the team, Sonal, has an honours degree in Economics. She also has been a student of International Studies from Christ University. Sonal handles all the collaborations, marketplaces and marketing activities on Social media.

How important is technology to save the world? In fact, isn't it counterproductive - Tech helping to save the planet?

Not at all. Technology helps us do things more efficiently. It plays a very crucial role in helping us take our work to a large number of people. Today we are in Delhi but we have customers from Manipur, Andaman and Kerala, all this has been possible only because of technology. In the tough time of covid when all the offline sales have completely stopped, technology is keeping us afloat.

Google and Facebook have been our only source of Marketing and sales. Even going forth, ecommerce is going to be very big. And with the advancement of the internet even to far-flung places, we will have a much more cohesive and interconnected world. We will be able to solve global problems better.

What do you offer that is different from the traditional approach towards the use of plastic?

We offer innovative plastic-free alternatives. These alternatives are made from waste materials like coconut shell, cork and bamboo grass. Instead of burning the coconut shells, for example, we upcycle them and convert them into beautiful craft and home utility products. We believe in the philosophy of waste to wealth, we have converted over 50k pieces of waste coconut shells into useful products. We have upcycled more than 100KG of waste jewellery into 1000 new pieces.

So far, people have focused on only a few kinds of products. Our goal is to provide our users with the widest variety of plastic-free alternatives for their day to day living.

How are you contributing to society other than the environmental aspect?

We support local artisans and underprivileged women in our efforts. For example, our brand logo and motifs are inspired by Warli art, a traditional Indian art form. The Warlis are one of India’s oldest indigenous tribes. Their art is shaped by their sustenance on forest land for centuries and symbolizes living in harmony with nature. We have also partnered with Craft and Community Development Foundation (CCDF), a not-for-profit entity set up to support the livelihood of communities focused on art and crafts. The Foundation upskills artisans and connects them to new markets. We contribute 1% of our every sale to the Artisans.

We have tied up with NGO’s like the Center for Human Rights and Social Welfare where we have empowered more than 40 women. These women had lost all the work during the pandemic but now they are working with us and are really happy. Further, we have tied up with Wildlife Trust of India and we are matching an equal amount of donation that we get on our website for preserving the heritage and habitat of the wild animals.

How does the future for MyONEarth look like? Are you expanding?

Sustainability and eco-friendly living - that is the future and ONEarth is working for the future. We are on our way to becoming a one-stop eco store for India, and then gradually, other locations across the world. We have got our Brand registered in the USA and we will soon be available on Amazon USA, UK and Europe.