In this episode of Travel Leap Sustainability Talks we asked Joana Cunha, founder of Fair Baazar our five questions about sustainability.
Fair Baazar is an online retail shop created with aim of gathering and proposing the best ethical and sustainable lifestyle products: from clothes, to accessories, home decor and beauty products. Fair Baazar was born with the aim to promote a retail experience that is sustainable and ethical. All the products in the online store comply to at leats two of the following criteria: artisan, eco-friendly, fair trade, organic, recycling, small scale, vegan, zero waste.
We adore this platform, the message it promotes and pretty much all the products they sell!.
Read along to learn more about Joana's story, how and why Fair Bazaar was born and her tips on sustainable traveling.
1. When did you realize sustainability was a topic you cared about and decided to adopt a specific lifestyle?
It all began in 2015 when I saw the documentary “The True Cost”. While watching it, I faced the cold garment workers’ reality, their poor working conditions and extremely low salaries – all for the availability of a close to costless t-shirt in a fast fashion store at the developed world. After the documentary, I couldn't stop thinking about these facts. I made further research and found out that this was not only an ethical problem but also a really big environmental one. So I started my journey finding sustainable and ethical alternatives. This revealed to be a hard task and not everyone has the patience to spend hours online seeking for these alternatives. And that's when I had the AHA moment: What about a platform that would gather the best ethical and sustainable lifestyle products – guilt-free and easily accessible? A platform that would provide all this and spread awareness across all consumers? Since then, I didn´t think twice and started working on this project. What started as a dream became a reality. We aim to become a renown and trustworthy European-wide platform for sustainable and ethical products.
2. Can you share one story of sustainability that has recently made you happy and one that made your sad or upset
So I’ll start with the story that made me happy: Plastic Whale is the first "professional plastic fishing company" ever. Aboard a plastic boat in Amsterdam, tourists enjoy a nice tour while catching plastic from the Amsterdam canals. The company recycles thousands of plastic bottles every month and recently they had the brilliant idea of using these bottles to produce office furniture. The story that made me upset was a video that I saw: A team of scientists spent nearly ten minutes pulling a plastic straw from the nostril of an olive ridley sea turtle. Straws are useless and contribute to the 5.25 trillion pieces of marine trash that have ended up in the ocean, according to a January report. People can drink out of a cup just as well without one and "with this video, we can actually show where [some] end up."
3. Which is the one behavior that you have changed in your day to day that had the biggest impact on living more sustainably?
I go almost week to the local bio market to buy vegetables and fruit so that I can support local farmers and organic agriculture and I use my Fair Bazaar tote bag made out of organic cotton.
4. What are your top 3 tips for being more sustainable while traveling?
In my opinion sustainable traveling is all about making simple choices in order to reduce your negative impact on a given destination. Individually, each one of these choices makes only a small difference in the big picture. But collectively, becoming more conscious about these little things can have a huge cumulative impact. So here are 3 simple but very impactful actions you can take while traveling:
Use a refillable water bottle
Go to local restaurants to support the local communities (and if they have organic food, even better!)
Buy locally made products (preferably handmade) made by artisans to ensure the culture and heritage is passed to the next generations. Items that are flown or shipped in have a much larger carbon footprint.
5. Which is the one thing/object you have with you in all your travels that helps to be more sustainable?
I always use a refillable water bottle so I don’t have to buy a plastic bottle every time I’m thirsty.
You can shop Fair Bazaar at thefairbazaar.com and male sure to follow them on Instagram @fair_baazar!
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