With the equivalent of one truckload (20,000 kilos) of plastic entering our ocean every minute, Willemijn Peeters created Searious Business to bring that number down to zero.
A big aspiration you may think but having spoken to Willemijn myself I must say I’m pretty convinced if anyone can make an impact she can.
Just to give you some context of her tenacious attitude, last year, during a plastic free ocean accelerated program from startup to scale up, Willemijn was given her own hashtag #unstoppable, she says “not succeeding is not an option.”
With a background in business and sustainability Willemijn explained, “I know what big companies base their decisions on and I'm always very focused on how the numbers run, it creates a positive business case, but money is not what makes me tick, I get passionate about leaving the world a better place than I found it in.”
Half the air we breathe comes from the ocean and it is as Willemijn puts it “our life support system and we're treating it as the garbage bin of our society. This is what triggered the change for me.”
In 2016 Searious Business was founded as a social enterprise to deliver mind-shifting solutions for circular plastic.
“It's not a company for fun or just to inspire, we really want to create a positive impact. In order to do that, we need to work together with companies that can create that impact.”
So how does it work? Searious Business uses knowhow, expertise, and holistic (systems-based) problem-solving to involve key players and technologies to close the plastic loop and use alternatives to virgin plastics. The company believes the answer lies in a threefold approach:
- Technological innovations
- Empowerment through marketing
- Organisational change
Willemijn tells me on average customers achieve more than five per cent higher margins, making
