Sustainable startups in Sri Lanka
We’re celebrating the 50th year marking the ‘Earth Day’ movement by featuring startups in Sri Lanka that have built a business around a vision for a sustainable earth.
“Good for our people. Good for our earth”. This sums up our evaluation criteria for this list. These startups are based in Sri Lanka, founded by Sri Lankans and employee majority of Sri Lankans. They are in the startup or growth stage and are less than 10 years old and their business model is centred around sustainability goals.
There are so many awesome startups doing incredible work but we had to narrow it down to only a few in each of the industries such as lifestyle, education, packaging, fashion and food & agriculture. Many of these brands talk about the importance of being socially and environmentally conscious and educate their audience about why it's so important to choose wisely.
Sustainable Lifestyle Brands in Sri Lanka
Living sustainably is a lifestyle. A movement. A state of being. It is being conscious about what we consume, being aware of the larger picture and being mindful of our actions and its impact on the earth.
Zero-Waste Store
Introducing Sri Lanka’s first zero-waste store is Shehani Raspathura who also founded JustGoodness in her efforts to live and encourage a more sustainable lifestyle. Located in Chithra Lane, the store sells everything from chemical-free bathroom essentials to vegetables and is built around the concept of “zero waste” where customers bring in their own containers, weigh and buy the items and show all-natural, chemical-free products.
Sustainableeyours
Founded in 2019 by Dinushika Gunaratne, Sustainableeyours promotes sustainable living with a curated range of locally sourced, eco-friendly products such as reusable culinary and travel sets, upcycled stationery and chemical-free hygiene products.
Good Market Lanka
A list of this nature cannot be written without mentioning GoodMarket which is a Sri Lankan startups concept that expanded to a global concept and features startups in countries such as New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. Their services for Sri Lanka include the Saturday Market, a retail outlet opposite the Colombo Racecourse and an Organic Participatory Guarantee System. The GM global community has 1,266 enterprises across 39 countries as at March 2020, all of which align with the central vision of “Good for People. Good for the Planet”.
Sustainable Packaging in Sri Lanka
Plastic doesn’t do well out there. In fact, it takes a 10–20 years to decompose a plastic bag and 450 years to decompose plastic bottle. Most plastics in landfills and the ocean are single-use such as packaging. Here are two startups’ solutions for the “plastic problem”.
Ananta Sustainables
Recently featured on Forbes, Ananta Sustainables founded by Savera Weerasinghe is a company that sources, transports, and designs sustainable products and packaging.
ECO 360’
Combating the “polythene problem” at the root of the problem, ECO 360' tied a recent partnership with Keells to replace all the fish, meat and vegetable counters with the home compostable bags made by corn starch.
Sustainable education in Sri Lanka
There is a lot to learn from nature; something that conventional education overlooks in its chase after “qualifications”. Education for sustainability gives the next generation the skills and knowledge to handle social and environmental changes that occur in the near future.
Children should understand the dependence between humans and the environment in which they live in.
Baby Minds Eco Montessori
In a competitive cut-throat education system where children are pushed to excel in academics as early as kindergarten and primary education, Baby Minds Eco Mmontisori wants to kids to develop their inner self first. Games and movement in the great outdoors and organic farming prompt the child to thrive and be stimulated in nature. Founded in 2017 by Isuri Ramanayake, this Montessori gives importance to freedom of choice in children in a “Help me do this by myself” mindset that thrives when they’re mersed in a recreation activities in nature.
Sustainable Fashion in Sri Lanka
What you wear might look glamorous on you but it may come at a huge cost on the environment.
The fashion industry is the second-largest consumer of the world’s water supply, and pollutes the oceans with microplastics and contributes 10% of all humanity’s carbon emissions.
Here’s why we need a Fashion Revolution and how you can take part in it.
Rika Fashion
Founded in 2015 by Chathurika Herath, Rika Fashion is a modern maternity wear brand that runs a production house concept that employees young women in rural areas. They focus on suing natural material such as cotton and linen, reducing waste through optimal cutting as well as using the left over material to make cloth bags, pouches and crafts etc to provide income for single moms in the area. Chathurika is also working on a body positive slow fashion brand.
House of Lonali
Founded by Lonali Rodrigo in 2012, House of Lonali upcycles extra and unwanted textiles from large manufacturers — waste that would otherwise end up as landfill — and transforms them into original clothes and lifestyle products. The company also works closely with cottage industries in Sri Lanka to hand-make our pieces, providing income in fair conditions for local artisans.
Pathanny.s
Pathanny.s is a fashion brand uses natural, locally sourced and hand-printed material. Founded by Yasodhara Pathanjali (who also painted Sri Lanka's largest wall mural as of now) in 2017, the brand encourages people to buy heirloom clothing as opposed to fast fashion.
The Store
Located in #14, Jayaratne Mawata, The Store promotes conscious fashion through second-hand shopping by collecting and selling clothes at affordable prices.
Sustainable Food Startups in Sri Lanka
The world’s food system is responsible for about 1/4th of the planet-warming greenhouse gases. This includes raising and harvesting all the plants, animals and animal products we eat as well as processing, packaging and shipping food to markets all over the world. Learn more about our eating habits and climate changehere.
Us on Earth
Us on Earth explores agriculture on different tangents to encourage a more holistic development of food and farming in Sri Lanka. Founded by Medhini Igoor and Abishek Devaraj in 2019, the brand is a personal project that expanded into a startup.
Honest Greens
Founded in 2015, Honest Greens grows plants pesticide-free, horizontally and indoors in a controlled environment and uses 95% less water than traditional field farms, enabling us to operate during times of drought.
Raw Sri Lanka
Founded in 2016 by Ronali Perera, Raw Sri Lanka makes nutritious coldpress fruit and vegetable juices and offers you a daily requirement of natural essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients in one jar.
The Sustainability Agency
This startup is in its early stages, but we thought it’s a very cool and interesting concept. Founded in 2020 by Achala Fernando, the sustainability agency measures, consults and helps brands carry out their operations and work towards carbon neutrality and efficient use of energy and water.
If you’re an individual who’s interested to make changes in your personal life, check this blog on living a sustainable lifestyle in Sri Lanka.
How has Hatch worked towards earth-friendly initiatives?
We at Hatch are keen to do our part for this movement. Our entire third floor is dedicated to the theme of reusing and recycling.
Made by artist Firi Rahman with the garbage he found in the ocean, this artwork and the surrounding in which it is displayed in, remind us that we have a role to play in preserving our environment.
All our floors are built to allow natural light to illuminate the interior and reduce electricity usage with LED bulbs for when we do need to light ourselves up. While we do operate two elevators, we encourage everyone to take the stairs as much as possible and get their daily 10,000 steps while breezing by all the floors and mingle with everyone along the way.
We will also be implementing a building management system to ensure efficient use of energy. Commons, our cafe partner has switched to biodegradable and reusable cutleary wherever necessary.
In addition, Hatch as a startup accelerator, also supports startups that are based on “Good for people. Good for earth” through programmes such as GLX (Good Life Acceleration).
If its something that the pandemic taught us is that startups and companies are innovative resillient and adapt to situations.
With consumers making sustainable decisions and being mindful inwhat they support with their money, companies are compelled and driven to innovate and pivot to provide services and products that are climate positive. Join the green movement. 💚
