KEY POINTS:
Brigid Hardy makes wanting to change the world sound simple - all you need is belief.
The former human rights lawyer left her job as a management consultant six years ago to bring to life a commercial idea with heart: washing up with a clean conscience.
That entrepreneurial instinct saw the birth of eco-friendly cleaning products company B_E_E.
"I didn't set this up to become a millionaire. I set this up to prove a point to myself, to New Zealand, to the world, quite a serious point that consumer products actually can contribute to a better world. I'm deeply serious about that.
"Perhaps when I started I was ridiculously ambitious and incredibly optimistic about it, but now it's a very real proposition."
Today, the B_E_E range can be found in 250 supermarkets around New Zealand, is nationally distributed across Australia, in the UK and four other European countries, and in select stores in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Africa. The company's also close to entering the US market.
And last year, the company made the Deloitte/Unlimited Fast 50 index, with revenue growth of around 150 per cent - something Hardy believes can be repeated over the next two years as the company eyes up further overseas expansion.
Hardy, a speaker at the upcoming Better by Design CEO Summit '08, has proven the business potential of sustainability. Before setting up the company, she spent 18 months developing the concept and researching future consumer trends.
"Not just was it a conscious idea to make it about environmentalism, but it was the whole kernel of it. It was the reason for starting the company."
Environmental considerations went into everything from the product's formulation to its packaging. Hardy said she was conscious of the inherent dangers of consumer cynicism as marketers increasingly looked to slap on a green image to capitalise on growing demand.
"You need to have an answer - you need to be able to tell consumers categorically that these products stack up rationally from a green perspective, and a performance perspective.
"I think if you had just latched on environmentalism to your product as an add-on then the long-term success, the longevity of your proposition, just wouldn't come to fruition.
"For us, although we're constantly reviewing our formula and constantly looking at different things we can do, the basic marketing proposition and basic tenets of the brand have not changed one iota."
Accreditation from the likes of Environmental Choice New Zealand - recently cited as an example of best practice in environmental labelling by Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs - has also helped.
"It wasn't, 'Hey I'm going to launch cleaning products, shall I make them sustainable?' It's, 'hey I want to change the world by providing these products that are environmentally world leading and completely desirable on all kinds of levels'. I didn't think at that time six years ago there was such a thing. Sexy environmentalism, beautiful, desirable environmentalism, wasn't a familiar concept in consumer products."
B_E_E (Beauty Engineered for Ever) arose from that gap. It also helped position the product in the premium end of the market overseas.
"The meaning of premium has changed really dramatically over the last 20 years. It's not so much an opulence but the absence of vulgarity - that's where luxury is moving ... But also, it has depth. It's got meaning, it resonates personally and it's got some individualism. And frankly, you can charge more for your products if you've got that."
Hardy said capitalising on New Zealand's clean green image makes logical marketing sense for exporters.
"Partly because it's a prerequisite - the environmental crisis is real enough and you have to answer that - but more, I think, because it's the perfect platform for our individual story, for talking about the fact that these products have depth, they're authentic and they're made by people who care.
"If you're a New Zealand company, and you're exporting something that's purely just a rational product proposition, then you're in the same camp as those guys selling cleaning products with the pink jumpsuits on TV."
"We all need a genuine story. And I think if you're a New Zealand company selling consumer products, then the potential that telling a genuine, authentic environmental story has as a conduit to display the company attributes, the personal attributes, and the brand attributes that the world wants to pay for, is just too great to ignore."
* Brigid Hardy will speak at the Better by Design CEO Summit '08 in Auckland on September 1.
www.betterbydesign.org.nz
