An Honest Chat with Christopher Gavigan
An Honest Chat with Christopher Gavigan
Christopher Gavigan is co-founder (with actress, Jessica Alba) and Chief Product Officer at the Honest Company. He’s the former CEO of Healthy Child, Healthy World(a national nonprofit empowering parents to protect their children from toxic risks) and author of a best-selling book. His approach to providing families non-toxic, eco-friendly, affordable and beautiful products blends perfectly with his long-standing dedication to environmentalism.
EMC: Where did your interest in child health and environmentalism start?
Christopher: I did my Undergrad work in Environmental Science at UC Santa Barbara and studied under Roderick Nash, who’s an environmental health genius. As an athlete I thought a lot about what it takes to be healthy and eat naturally. When I brought my interests in environmentalism and health together with my interest in education; it all kind of fit. I worked in environmental education when I was in my early twenties and saw all these kids with behavior disorders, learning challenges, autism, asthma and allergies. When I was growing up, maybe one kid had ADHD in the whole school. The spike in an epidemic between generations struck me. I went back to school and did my masters in family and child psychology to learn how people understand behavioral messaging and behavioral modification steps.
Was your interest in behavioral modification specifically tied to environmental issues?
Yeah I used to lead teenagers on wilderness expeditions and was really interested in the psychological and psycho-emotional range of these kids. I was fascinated by what kids were putting in their bodies and how their parents were parenting them. Ultimately I came to an organization called the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition, a non-profit focused on educating families around their lifestyle choices. They had brand, messaging and emerging developmental problems and I rebranded it into Healthy Child, Healthy World. Then I wrote the book of the same name.
You were dialed into this before you even became a father.
It was funny. When I started pitching the book concept, my publisher said: You need to have a baby or no one is going to think you’re legitimate.
You better get on that!
Yeah, I sold the book in March and it was released the next March. Within those twelve months we had our first child.
Once you had your son was it hard to go through the baby years and keep your environmental philosophies in mind?
The biggest challenge was knowing too much about toxins and chemicals. As a new parent you’re in a moment of awakening and confusion and just trying to hold on. When you layer in an understanding around children’s vulnerability and developing body systems and chemicals that are unregulated, it can be arresting. I sympathize with parents who say, “I just want to feed my baby right, put the right products on his skin and live in a healthy, safe home. There are a lot companies that don’t have our best interests in mind. A lot of chemicals in the industry aren’t guaranteed to be safe.
Did you transfer your work to the Honest Company around that same time?
I met a young mom, Jessica Alba, at my book launch. She had this idea about an organic clothing company and we just connected. There was a lot of synchronicity of ideas. During my time at Healthy Child I was peeking behind the doors of different companies, both in the green and traditional spaces, helping to vet them to determine whether they were healthy and safe. I feel like Honest is an outgrowth of my mission to educate families. That mission was built in the non-profit sphere, but I thought, why not try to do it in the for-profit sphere and really change consumers’ minds. Jessica was very much in sync with that and had a lot of great ideas.
Is the needle moving further with a consumer platform than the non-profit platform?
Entirely, but there would be no way to connect and legitimize this message unless there was already a non-profit stronghold on foundational work. Consumers are inherently skeptical about our intentions, which is healthy and necessary and I admire that. We live in a world of consumables where parents are using products every single day. If a non-profit educates them that environmental factors and products they use can affect their children’s health and that there are safer products available, hopefully that translates into the rest of their lives. There’s a “knowing moment” that’s hard to un-know. Hopefully that will also translate into behavioral modification and higher and deeper intentions on this side of the space.
Is there legislation moving with this?
Legislation is in the wings. It’s just a matter of the right moment and right piece of legislation. It’s gone back-and-forth trying to get bipartisan support. It’s close. Legislation is necessary, especially when you have chemical manufacturers and folks like us saying, “Hey regulate us, please. Give us the guardrails.” Anyone can get away with anything. It’s just companies with some sort of moral compass who are doing regulations.
What do you want parents to know about making wise environmentally sound choices?
Parents might say, “Organic foods are more expensive,” or, “my baby is five-years-old and you’re telling me I’ve been polluting my baby?” That makes them feel badly and want to ignore the message. But, there’s a great study from the 90’s about pesticides from conventionally grown foods in children’s bodies. They tested kids on Monday, fed them organic foods through the week and re-tested them on Friday and over 90% of the pesticides had left their blood -pesticides meant to kill things and hormone destructors. They’re toxic and high in carcinogens.
Parents can make small changes and have a huge impact like, take your shoes off at the door to reduce tracking grime and bacteria through your home. Open your windows to let fresh air in. It’s about the health of your child and a generation. It’s up to parents to be the guardians and leaders.
