JT Final

Crystal: Want to know how YouTube can be a force for nature. Head on over to forces for nature.com and sign up to receive a free guide with practical actions that you can start taking today. I’m crystal Izzy Macelli and welcome to the forces for

Jaclyn: nature show.

Crystal: Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the domains and you hear of these days? Do you feel like you it’s just one person can’t really make a difference? Forces for nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview somebody who’s doing great things for animals and the environment we talk through the problem they’re addressing the solution.

They have found what keeps them going. And we’ll leave you with practical action tips so that you too can become a forest for nature. Today’s guest is Jacqueline Tracy, founder of the sustainable lifestyle brand sustain. Through her company, she aims to make living a sustainable life, easier with the careful curation of modern and stylish fashion, beauty and home goods.

The third one research that Jacqueline and her team do regarding green tips and products helps to take the overwhelm out of making more conscious choices. And she’s helping to change the perception of what sustainable looks like and how it could fit within our

Jaclyn: lives.

Crystal: Hi, Jacqueline. Thank you so much for joining me on forces for nature. It’s so great to have

Jaclyn: you. Thank you, crystal. I’m so excited to be here.

Crystal: So I usually like to start with talking about a certain issue before diving into what you’re doing about said issue with that said, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve with sustain or the value that you

Jaclyn: offer?

Yeah, so the, the problem that we’re trying to solve with sustain is really a problem in my own life. I was creating my wedding registry and starting to think about my longer term. Future of what kind of quality products and sustainable products do I want in my home for the longterm. And so, as I did that research around planning for the 10 to 20 years, how, what products can still exist for me then I just went down this rabbit hole of just like, how do I live a more sustainable life?

Once I started thinking about my long-term future, I really had trouble navigating it myself. And so as I started doing more and more research, I was like, this needs to be easier. Like this has to be easier in order for people to truly, truly shop these sustainable brands and also just vote with their dollar, align their values to their behaviors.

This has to be easier for people. So that’s a true problem. We’re trying to solve.

Crystal: What is the connection between our consumerism and the environment.

Jaclyn: If you think about fast fashion in the last 30 years, it’s grown from a $500 billion trade to a $2.4 trillion trade. So that in itself, think about the waste that comes with that growth.

I’m sure many of our listeners have shopped fast fashion. I have, I used to shop a lot of fast fashion and the products are either they’re just this trendy seasonal thing, or they might be a t-shirt that maybe you wash it three times and then it starts falling apart and you get rid of it. And that is just not a sustainable system.

So on average Americans throw away 81 pounds of textiles per year, which is really a scary stat that keeps continuing to increase over the years. And then beyond that too, everybody knows now that plastic is a real problem. 60% of our clothes are made of plastic. And so when you wash those, those clothes that are made of plastic, so polyester, synthetic fibers, That actually gets into our water systems and inform of microplastics.

Yeah. It’s a huge issue, which I never even realized insights until I started doing this research specifically. Around plastic or you think of your yogurt cup? Oh yeah, that’s bad. But I never thought about polyester even. I didn’t even know it was plastic, so that’s a huge issue. But beyond fashion on the beauty industry, there’s tons of plastic, product packaging and things.

And then it’s also just not a highly regulated industry in terms of the chemicals that are used and beauty products, especially in the U S so in Europe, there are 1300 chemicals. That are banned from beauty products and in the U S there’s only 30, which is a wild stat to me. So it’s just, yeah, the whole system just needed, like somebody needs to be regulating that and researching and really, truly understanding.

And I feel like as consumers we’ve gotten so far away from the actual process of what is being made for us and who’s making it and all of that and how much energy is being used to make it, we’ve gotten so far away from the process that we didn’t, we don’t even realize that nobody’s really regulating it.

So that’s what sustain is trying to do is like, I’m not saying we’re like a government regulatory agency, but we do want to just do the research, do the work deep dive with these brands so that we truly understand what progress they’re making and the sustainable space so that we can make better choices as consumers.

Crystal: Can you tell me more about sustained?

Jaclyn: Yeah. So sustained. It’s a sustainable lifestyle brand. We are both an educational platform and then we are also an e-commerce. We want to become a one-stop shop for all sustainable lifestyle products within home beauty, fashion, and general lifestyle. And so the way I explain it to some people is we really, truly just want to make sustainable lifestyle more accessible to all humans, because a lot of people feel really overwhelmed because there is so much research, especially in the consumerism space that you have to do even to know if a brand is sustainable or not.

There’s a ton of greenwashing out there. So truly we are just trying to make it easier, more accessible. And connect consumers to these brands who are doing it right? Because that is the amazing thing about living in the 21st century. There are, there are thousands of brands out there doing this, right? I love

Crystal: it.

Cause I know for myself personally, I, I need that you’re right. The research involved in figuring out what’s sustainable or not, it could be a job in itself.

Jaclyn: It’s heavy, it’s heavy. It is heavy.

Crystal: What’s interesting is that you come from the corporate advertising world, what led you to create sustain?

Jaclyn: So my brother was really always the voice in my head.

He was the one who kind of opened my eyes when I was in college to all of the world’s problems. And also he was always challenging. Societal norms. He actually lives in eco positive footprint life with his family and the Northern boundary water areas between Minnesota and Canada. And they have tons of permaculture gardens and things like that.

So he has always really been about decreasing waste. And so for me, that was the seed that was planted. Even in college, I was working at like secondhand designer resell stores so that I could still like be fashionable, but it’d be eco-friendly. I was working at the. Resell store. I was working in nonprofits and college, but I, I did feel like I needed to be challenged and I needed to learn more.

So I jumped into advertising at an agency, whereas you are really challenged and I learned a lot quickly, but I did stop thinking about. The earth. I really was very selfish at that time of my life because I was stressed out with this agency job, but I learned a lot from advertising. And so what it did teach me is that consumer behavior can be changed and I’m taking that insight and.

Really applying it to sustain so that we can truly share our message and our focus on small, sustainable changes so that people can feel less intimidated by the whole process of living a more sustainable life and give people more solutions in a consumable way. So the corporate world was great for learning for me, but I’ve always felt in my heart and soul that I, I want to do something that has a greater impact.

Crystal: On your website, you said that’s a stain seeks to support brands that are operating with sustainable or circular methods of design production, and manufacturing processes. What are circular methods?

Jaclyn: So circular methods of design. I’m not going to get into the technical details of it because at the Ellen MacArthur foundation actually does a really good.

A ton of research around this, if you actually want to understand the systems, um, themselves, but the high level overview is. Currently, we have this linear system where we consume something and then it’s goes to a landfill, which is the likely outcome. Maybe it gets recycled, but only 9% of, of plastic Keven in the U S gets recycled every year.

So it’s likely that it just goes directly to the landfill. So that’s like a linear system. A circular system means it’s reused. So there are tons of brands now that are creating these closed loop systems, where they have a trade in program and maybe you get rewards or some kind of credit for trading.

And so four days is a really amazing brand. It’s a t-shirt brand that I always wear. And. You save a ridiculous amount of energy. If you give them that t-shirt back once you’re done with it, you know, if it has rips in it or if it has stains or whatever, and then they give you credit for that swap and they reuse that material to create new t-shirts.

So that’s the circular system. And another example of it is we sell bamboo dish brushes and scrubbers, and for the dish brush that I use. When I’m done with it, I pop the head off of, so it’s bamboo and then it’s made of a plant-based material. I pop it off and I throw it in my compost and that’s commercial compost.

So that the, um, the brush birth. Yeah. So I keep the handle because the handle doesn’t get like moldy or gross, like the handles good for a longer period of time. But yeah, I pop off the top part with the bristles and then I just put it in my. Compost. And my compost gets picked up once a week. So like that is another example where it’s like full circle back to the earth.

So even beyond that is there are different ways that you can participate in the circular economy if you’re renting. Items of you’re really somebody who’s like, I can’t get away from this. Like I need to be trendy or even you’re going to a wedding and you need an outfit. Like renting is a really good option because that is a more circular system where multiple people are using that.

And also just the system of even choosing brands who are just using materials that are. Natural, organic cotton, hemp, silk, things like that. So that’s clean and green, but the trend that I love the most in this space is just that more and more brands are doing these trade on programs. So four days has one, Eileen Fisher has one.

Patagonia has one. So there’s tons of these big, sustainable brands that are starting to do this so that you really can exchange that product. And it will be reused in a responsible fashion.

Crystal: For the brands that you promote, what’s your vetting process? Like how do brands get the okay. By you?

Jaclyn: That’s a great question.

And it is constantly evolving. So. Currently, if it’s fashion, then we use good on you data. Good on you is an app that you can download on your phone. So when you’re shopping fashion brands, you can look up in their brand directory. Is this a sustainable brand? And they have all these ratings within that system.

So we use that a lot for research within the fashion space. And then if it’s not rated on, good on you, then we do our own deep dive. Research. So that’s for fashion. And then for beauty, we’re still defining our exact standard, but the way that we approach it is just is this brand progressing in the space and are they taking this seriously, you know, sustainability efforts and, and do they have multiple efforts across different categories?

So like looking at their packaging. Looking at the ingredients that they use in their products and, and then just their philosophy overall. So just really doing a deep dive into that. And then in the home space, the home space is a little bit different. So we do what we’re trying to do is support more small businesses within home because, you know, it’s like throw pillows and things like that.

There are tons of things. Small businesses who are creating throw pillows that are made of organic cotton. And, and so it’s about like, what is the material? What does it made of, and then trying to support as many small businesses as we can. And also looking at is this fair trade, is it ethically made things like that?

So, so really. That’s a long-winded answer, but eventually we want to get to a standardized system that is a, like a data science model that helps us to determine what is sustained approved. But right now we’re just really doing deep dive so that we understand fully if we support a brand or not. And, and will they grow with us because we’re always progressing this whole space.

It’s like, there’s tons of innovation happening right now. So it’s really about their philosophy. Like, are they willing to change? As we learn about new sustainable methods, no

Crystal: total side note regarding beauty and cosmetics and stuff. If you wanted to consider cruelty-free, there are a few good websites available, similar to good on you that can help you figure that part out.

If that’s part of what you want to

Jaclyn: add in your yeah. And, and even with the cruelty-free piece, even on our site, eventually we want to have all of those certifications really clear enlisted because especially in the beauty space, Cruelty-free is a certification that you can look out for. And so we’ve, we do want to have that really transparently listed.

And is this company a B Corp? Like it was this fair trade, all of those different certifications that are out there. We do want to eventually integrate that into our system as

Crystal: well. Oh, my goodness. There’s just so many different elements to take into consideration. It’s quite a beast of an undertaking.

Really. I’ve been really a searching at myself and it’s just like,

Jaclyn: I know that’s what I, the way that I think about this job as the founder of sustain is I’m like this job will challenge me forever. I know it. I know it will. I think that we will continue to progress because there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

In this space and a lot of things to really define and just more than anything, we do want to just be transparent with consumers. And so just being really honest and open about these brands and what they’re up to and how they’re creating these products. So people have a true understanding of that process versus just like, oh, this is a cute top for the season.

And then it’s out in the landfill. I hear

Crystal: often how buying sustainable goods is a luxury. Do you find that the brands you curate to be more expensive than their less sustainable options and what can brands do to change

Jaclyn: this? So that is a really great question that I was actually listening to a podcast interview with the founder of Matt, the label, which is one of my favorite sustainable brands.

And. Her philosophy on this is, is completely aligned with mine and that it’s. I think it has to happen with a consumer mindset shift of what they’re purchasing and how much does that cost. And also simultaneously brands need to get these costs down. And I think that will happen naturally as the sustainable brands scale.

To a larger size. So with, for an example around organic cotton is cotton is deemed the dirtiest crop, conventionally grown cotton uses more pesticides and chemicals than any other crop. That’s something that a lot of people don’t know, but it really is important to buy organic cotton or recycled cotton for that reason.

And so brands who are choosing to buy organic cotton over conventionally grown cotton. Organic cotton is more expensive. It just is. So those, those items are going to be pricier, but I do believe that as these companies grow and scale, and as, as even these farms identify ways to. It’s scale as well. Like I, I do think that it’ll decrease the costs, but the way that the mat, the label founder was talking about all of this is just about the consumer mindset and how it’s like about identifying those timeless high quality things that you need, and that you will continue to wear versus buying 30 different products from these fast fashion.

You know, if you buy 10 really high quality products versus that 30 fast fashion products. It does pricing-wise even out over time.

Crystal: And again, another side note. Moving into a small Roman apartment definitely helps you evaluate what did they want you for so

Jaclyn: much? So true. It’s so true. And I am always inspired by the women on my team because we do have a lot of minimalists.

I am shifting my mindset to be more minimalists. Because it is, there are just so many things that it’s like, you know, you go to target and all of a sudden you have like 20 things that you’re like, why I don’t need any of this. And like a year later you’re getting rid of it when you’re moving houses or whatever.

So it is, it’s a shift to a more minimalist mindset too. And like, what do you really need? Which as I’ve shifted mine mindset around more, being more minimalist, it is less stressful. Truly, because you just don’t have as much stuff that you have to like weed through and deal with. And those clothes that you never wore in your closet, but you just have, because you liked them, but they really weren’t useful and you get rid of that stuff and it does make life easier

Crystal: in this journey of creating sustain.

Can you tell me about a time when you said to yourself this, this is

Jaclyn: why I do it? Yes, absolutely. So every time that somebody comes up to me and says, this is kind of funny to say out loud, but every time somebody says to me, you are inside my head now. And in a non-judgemental way, like I’m rethinking my behaviors, my habits, and also the rules that society gave me around.

Again, like going back to like a dish brush, it’s like the normal societal kind of choices. Oh, this plastic dish brush that everybody had, but now it’s, there are, there are so many other options. So, so making those choices and just planting those seeds to get individuals just thinking differently and starting to change, challenge their own behaviors and making those small sustainable changes towards imperfect progress.

Like that is why I do what I do. When I hear about those success stories, I’m like, yes, this is it. Does

Crystal: that imperfect progress that we have to celebrate because progress is progress at the end of the day.

Jaclyn: Truly, truly,

Crystal: it may have been a roadblock or an unexpected lesson learned in setting up this book.

Jaclyn: So really, I think the learnings around sustain that I’ve had is that it does take longer. And it takes more energy than you realize to build a brand because I already see this vision of what sustainable be in five years, communicating that vision and getting everybody else to see it too is a long road.

So I would say that that is the largest challenge. It takes a lot of patience and consistency. And just believing that you can do this. And then I also do own a marketing agency called brand effect. So it’s been really interesting because I’ve finally found like this was a great lesson for me was as I was, I’m trying to step into this, just like true alignment of like who I am and like what.

I want to achieve. And that really is to reduce the negative effects of consumerism. Like that is my greatest intention. That is what drives me every single day. And so another learning around just having these two companies is now I’m starting to really align brand effect clients, even with that same.

Space of supporting sustainable brands. There’ve been lots of challenges just navigating, like how to spend our energy. And I mean, I make like a thousand decisions a day, so I’m just, we’re constantly learning, but the vision is here. It’s communicating that and consistently talking to our audience of people and the community that we want to build.

Crystal: What can we expect from sustain in the future?

Jaclyn: So I have a lot of dreams, so yeah, we want to keep continuing to build out our educational media hub because again, solving my own problem. I th I just find it still to this day, hard to find answers to sustainable lifestyle questions, even when I’m like, oh, is this metal bottle cap?

Recyclable or do I need to throw this in the trash? Like just the most basic questions of everyday things? Like what do I do with my pens once their ink is out like that kind of thing. There are just so many options that I’m sure everyone has. And I know, I mean, at least our community has expressed many of them and my team has expressed many of them.

So we do want to, we want to create almost a Google of sustainable lifestyle, where it’s really easy for people to find. The answers to any question that they have within the space and then yeah. Continuing to build out our e-commerce platform. So right now, if you shop on sustain website, you’ll see that we have wellness stuff.

We have some home stuff, some lifestyle stuff. We don’t have any fashion because fashion is like a whole nother beast, but eventually we will be building out of a number of different fashion collections from sustainable brands. And then. We are going to launch a really amazing community space that allows for people to really share knowledge, because that is how I, I believe that we can progress faster and we can learn from each other and get those questions answered.

The only way we can do that is if we truly like create a space where there can be a lot of knowledge sharing around the sustainable lifestyle. So definitely want to create some kind of a community that lives beyond Instagram so that it is this constant communication with our community around, like, what are they learning?

And then as I mentioned, the data science model is something that I have been thinking through for almost like two or three years now. So that is going to happen. It will happen eventually. I think that will open some brick and mortars around the U S. And, and the reason that I’m thinking that we’ll do that is, is that one for the experiential purpose of we’re introducing new brands to these consumers who don’t necessarily shop sustainable fashion right now.

So just to be able to touch and feel and like trust. These brands. I just think that it will take having some in-person spaces. And then on top of that, I, this is my big aspirational dream is to create a closed loop, trade in program for all of our brands. So any brand that we sell so people could come into our brick and mortar or they could send it to us.

And our warehouse and so that we can really district redistribute those materials directly back to those brands so that they can reuse them and repurpose them.

Beautiful.

Crystal: I can’t wait to see

Jaclyn: that happen. All of that. I’m excited for it too. So what

Crystal: can the listener do to make their buying habits more sustainable?

Jaclyn: So, There’s so many things I’d say a good starting point is just like, there’s simple swaps in your home. Like once you’re done with that plastic dish brush, swap it for a natural bamboo. One reducing plastic, like something that’s helped me in my everyday life is stash or bags, stash, or bags are made of silicone that you can even put them in a dishwasher, but they are a replacement for Ziploc baggies.

So there’s tons of easy swaps. And we, we talk about those all the time on our, on our site. And then the other way to, to approach buying in a different way is with fashion. I do, this is a little more in the weeds. So the first recommendation I would say is just go to our sustain approved brands tab and just kind of look at what brands are approved and look at their write-ups and their sustainability efforts.

Like that’s the easiest option. And then if you are out shopping, what I do is I do look at the material of an item, like, what does it made of. So, is it made of hemp? Is it made of organic cotton? Is it made of silk? Is it so just looking for those like natural materials and then with beauty, that’s a whole different beast, but again, like please use this as a resource and ask us any questions, even if you’re just on our Instagram or via email, if you ever, like, is this brand sustainable or not just send it to us.

And we are always constantly doing research. So I would say that’s another very easy. Way to get an answer around this stuff, but beauty products even kind of assessing their philosophy and things, and like their packaging of somebody is making packaging from sugar cane versus just be your everyday PPE plastic.

Then it’s, it shows that that brand is thinking deeper about these sustainability efforts and how can

Crystal: people contact you? Where can they get more information about sustain?

Jaclyn: You can get more information on our website, the sustain.com. So it’s T H E and then sustain. So it actually stands for sisters and sustainability F I S T a I n.com.

And, and the reason that we named it, you know, sisters in sustainability is because women do have 70 to 80% of the buying power. So truly have the power to change the whole system. So these sustain.com. And then our Instagram is just sustain S I S T a I N. So that’s where we’re most active and you can find any other outlets are email and things like that via our, our website.

Crystal: Perfect. And I’ll also include that all in the show notes so that it’s, it’s available for people to find Jacqueline. This has been great. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for everything that you’re doing, you’re making a difference.

Jaclyn: Thank you, crystal. It’s been so fun and truly, I, I understand that we can only make a difference if we move forward together.

And so this really is about the collective effort and just all of us just taking one small step towards living a more sustainable life every single day. The

Crystal: connection of how consumerism impacts the environment may not always be so clear. However, when you take a moment to think about how and what products are made of and what their life cycle may be, a very discouraging picture can start to emerge and to find out what is, and isn’t quote unquote, good can be quite overwhelming when we’re juggling all of the things.

That’s why a company likes sustain is so important. They do the heavy lifting for us by sifting through the noise and the greenwashing out there. And remember, it’s not about being perfectly sustainable. If we’re all trying to do our best to be conscious consumers, however, in perfectly we’re doing it, our collective action will be what makes the biggest

Jaclyn: difference.

Crystal: Don’t forget to go to forces for nature.com and sign up to receive email show notes. Action tips and a free guide to help you start taking practical actions today. Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them, hit me up on Instagram and Facebook.

And let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting. Just one habit can be a game changer because imagine if a million people also adopted that, what difference for the world are you going

Jaclyn: to make today?