Exclusive interview with Ecover's Mick Bremans

“Make sure it works first – then make it green.” CEO Mick Bremans speaks out on cleaning products and fashion victims.

Clean first, then green

When we started [20 years ago], we were making green products that also happened to be cleaning products. We thought: “OK, there is a huge market out there for green stuff – so let’s make a green product”. And at first everything went fine: we were stocked by the major supermarkets, and our sales and income rose rapidly. Then we [hit recession] in the early ’90s, and the end of that first green wave – and that was when we realised we had to change our basic strategy.

We had to focus on product quality above all – on performance and convenience. Which meant our products really had to do the job when it came to washing, cleaning and so on. So we changed the priority, if you like. First we made sure they worked; then we made them as green as possible.

Green all over – the company, not just the product

We’re asking our consumers to make a conscious choice for an ecological product – usually they’re paying a little bit more as a result of that choice. So why shouldn’t they expect us to make a conscious choice to be a more ecological company? That question started us off down the road on all our environmental initiatives – whether it’s our green factory [in Ecover’s specially built timber and grass-roofed headquarters near Antwerp] or our packaging policies. Effectively we’re saying: ‘We want you to have a more sustainable lifestyle; as a company we have to do the same. So together, maybe we can achieve something’.

Do the right thing – and you might be surprised

We set up our packaging returns system [in which used transit packaging goes back to the suppliers] as part of our green drive, but soon realised it saved us an enormous amount of money. Now our suppliers are using it with their. suppliers, too – as much for the economic as ecological benefits…

But once you start trying to act sustainably, you find you’re on a road which never seems to end. And that can be frustrating! You can’t say, ‘on that day we’ll become a sustainable company’. What you do today, you need to improve tomorrow, basically.

So you need to set priorities: decide what is really important, and act on it.

Don’t be a fashion victim

Environmental issues are as much subject to fashion as anything else. At the moment it’s all about carbon. Of course that’s important, but we always try to look at the whole picture, which can be difficult if the media is obsessed with a single issue. Water will be next: water footprinting will be a huge issue. But you can’t just chase after the headlines. Otherwise you’ll think you’ve cracked carbon, or water, or whatever, and then someone will come along and say, ‘your palm oil is destroying rainforests and killing orangutans!’ and you think ‘uh-oh’…

That’s why we’ve asked Best Foot Forward to measure our total ecological footprint, covering all our impacts.

There’s a right way and a wrong way...

...to be a green entrepreneur. The wrong way is to say: ‘I have this fantastic product, and everybody is going to want it’. That’s how we started, and it can work initially. But ultimately it can just create a lot of enthusiasm that shouldn’t really be there!

The right way involves looking very carefully at the market, listening to the market – and listening to consumers. After all, you’re trying to bring them convenience, with added value, so you have to be clear exactly what it is they want. It sounds straightforward in theory – it can be quite difficult in practice!

At the same time, though, you still have to be brave. You can’t expect real innovation from consumers. They have their long-established habits, they’re used to particular products, and so on. The innovation has to come from you.

Don’t worry about the waves

I joined Ecover in 1992, right at the moment when we were coming down off that wave [laughs]. So I learned the hard way that you have to be resilient. If you think you have got a good product, you have to stick with it – but you have to be absolutely certain it’s a good product in the first place!

Mick Bremans was in conversation with Martin Wright.

10 August 2009

Martin Wright