Package Free leads the charge in scaling sustainable CPG
While the severity of the climate crisis may be new to some, it’s not news to environmentalist Lauren Singer. After successfully educating millions worldwide on how to live more sustainably and without waste via her multimedia content platform Trash Is for Tossers, Lauren channeled her entrepreneurial spirit to start Package Free, the first and largest zero-waste lifestyle shop.
When we met Lauren, we were blown away by what she’s accomplished in a short amount of time with few resources. At just 28 years old, she’s been able to build a profitable e-commerce business and physical store in under two years. At the seed stage, we look for founders who have incredible drive and ingenuity, and after seeing that her passion and clear mission were at the heart of everything behind Package Free, we knew she was a special entrepreneur.
We love that with Package Free, Lauren is promoting incremental changes with exponential impact. Her determination to create a large business that brings sustainable products not just to the wealthy, but to everyone, is a vision that we wanted to back. Sustainable consumer goods represent $128.5BN in consumer spending that has grown by 20% since 2014. With consumers driving the demand for more responsible products through the lens of sustainability, we know that this is just the beginning of the tremendous impact Lauren and Package Free will have on bringing plastic-free and zero waste products into every household.
We’re unbelievably proud to lead Package Free’s seed round, and beyond what we’ve shared so far, here’s what else you should know about Package Free…
At its core: The first and largest zero-waste lifestyle shop to provide tangible solutions to the climate crisis.
Its mission: To make the world less trashy.
How: Package Free offers sustainable, accessible, and affordable products that reduce waste at scale — it’s everything that consumers need to live a zero-waste lifestyle in one place.
Why now: There’s no shortage of horrifying stats about the climate crisis and the impact humans are having on the earth. By 2050, the World Economic Forum reports that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. In June, a study from the World Wide Fund for Nature shared that we’re already ingesting the equivalent of a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. The U.S. is particularly culpable in these struggles — we generate more waste than any other country. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency found that the average American generates 4.48 pounds of solid waste per day.
The “it” factor: As a pioneer of the zero waste movement and a longstanding environmentalist, founder Lauren Singer is exceptionally positioned to fuel concrete ways to help with the climate crisis. In only two years, Package Free has already diverted 75 million units of trash including 20 million plastic bags, 15 million plastic straws, 1.5 million plastic water bottles, 1 million coffee cups, and 250K razors from landfills.
We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome Package Free to the Primary family. We’re excited about the positive impact Lauren and her team will continue to make on consumer behavior through the introduction of easy ways for everyone to make choices that benefit the environment. For more on the announcement, visit TechCrunch and Crunchbase, and be sure to visit Package Free’s website.
— Ben Sun, Primary General Partner and Co-Founder
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