Sustainability Spotlight is a collaboration between the Nugget and NAITSA’s Sustainability Committee. Each month, the committee interviews a sustainability expert to learn more about their journey.

This month features Vanessa Marshall, owner of Jack59, a Canadian company focusing on plastic-free and natural haircare. 

Answers have been edited for clarity and space. 

NAITSA Sustainability Committee: What inspired you to start a sustainability-focused business? 

Vanessa Marshall: I think it was kind of a few things, partially the way that I was brought up. My mom is Indigenous and my dad is like an old hippie type. So sustainability was really enforced in our upbringing — kind of the basic care for the earth and thinking a little deeper about the choices that we made and the products that we buy. 

As a consumer, I was really struggling with products that made sense and trying to reduce the plastic in my life. And we went through early phases of creating products and ending up really purchasing a bunch of plastic packaging that wasn’t making sense. So we did this big pivot and chose to do fully plastic-free products. 

I think a lot of people often purchase products because of the packaging. And we wanted to switch that mind frame and actually just try to get rid of the packaging altogether.

Obviously, that was a little difficult through COVID-19. We had to pivot and create some compostable or at least recyclable packaging. I think that’s really the drive, was wanting to do better, be better and have people focus on the products themselves as opposed to the packaging.

NSC: What is the core mission of your business? 

VM:  We are certified B Corp, so we actually had to change our incorporation documents to include that we put people and the planet ahead of every decision that we make. And a part of that was my experience in the corporate world. I was a dental assistant by trade and really never had any say or influence over the decisions that were made at my work. 

So we want our mission to take care of people on the planet. That includes the people that work for my company, the people that are outside of my company, our community, the people that are supporting us. 

NSC: How are your products different from traditional ones in terms of the environmental impact?

VM: So traditionally, as I’m sure everybody is mostly aware, shampoo comes in a plastic bottle and it’s about 70 to 90 per cent water. So what we wanted to do was eliminate the water, first of all. 

We’re trying to reinforce to people that the transportation of water in cosmetic products — including shampoos, conditioners, lotions, face creams — that has a huge carbon footprint in the world. 

That water has a heavy weight, obviously it’s being shipped across the world. And that adds a lot of greenhouse gas emissions to a product.

The second piece of that is the plastic bottle itself. So we wanted to get rid of the plastic so that when you consumed your shampoo in the shower, when it’s done, there’s nothing left, there’s nothing to be thrown away. 

And sometimes we get some feedback like, “Oh, I don’t think the shampoo bar is ever going to work for me.” 

I think it’s because we’re taught our whole lives that shampoo comes out of a plastic bottle.

And to see it in a different form, people are skeptical as to whether that works or not. 

NSC: How do you balance sustainability with profits? 

VM: That’s really hard to kind of nail down into one or two sentences. You have to look at it sort of as the sum of the whole.

I’m sure everybody’s heard it. It doesn’t take one person doing sustainability perfectly. It takes the community doing it imperfectly, but the more people that you have doing that, the more the impact is. 

So we’re not perfect by any means. We’re a very small team. Our management team is literally three people. So we make mistakes and we grow and our community will hold us accountable as well. So it is an absolute balance, but we’re getting better at it. 

It is absolutely a balancing act. 

And for the last few years, I really felt the need to be on Amazon because so many people shop on Amazon. And we’ve finally decided that it’s actually not necessary, that we can do this without them. I think we’ve built a big enough community that have people that support us outside of Amazon that we can now make that choice.

To learn more about Jack59, visit their website. Catch up on other Sustainability Spotlight interviews on OoksLife.

Featured image via Jack59