Topics
GreenKit
Sustainable discovery box for parents-to-be
GreenKit wants to help parents-to-be in their search for sustainable alternatives in the field of baby care products, toys, clothing, etc. by offering them a discovery box full of samples of sustainable products and services for baby and mother.
Future parents receive the box from their midwife, doula or carrying consultant during the sixth month of their pregnancy. In this way, we bring them into contact with circular services and responsible products at a time when they are actively thinking about how they want to organise the world for their future child. With this box, we hope to encourage future parents from the very beginning to choose second-hand products more often, to use rather than own products, to use washable products rather than disposable ones, to use baby care and environmentally friendly care...
The box is offered free of charge to keep the threshold to circular, sustainable and ecological services and products as low as possible. By making these alternatives known and as accessible as possible, we also want to slowly shift the norm in this direction. And if children see the sustainable alternative as a matter of course from an early age, they will also find it easier to make that choice as adults.
An additional advantage of the kit is that we offer small, sustainable businesses an opportunity to introduce their desired target audience to their sustainable products and services.
GreenKit
Sectors
Website
MOST IMPORTANT
RESULTS
- In 2019 and 2020, three editions of GreenKit have already been rolled out in Flanders. Some 27 sustainable businesses participated (sometimes more than once), and a total of 12,000 discovery boxes have already been distributed.
- We developed a website, Greenkit.be, where parents-to-be can find a whole series of blog articles with inspiration for making sustainable, circular choices for their baby and family.
- The discovery kit is a great success and has already been requested by 180 different distribution points all over Flanders to distribute to pregnant women.
- Greenkit is the ideal way for sustainable entrepreneurs to reach the right potential audience at the right time.
MOST IMPORTANT
LESSONS LEARNED
- The scale of the project has advantages and disadvantages for everyone: for example, for supplying hospitals, the stock is too small, but for small sustainable companies, participating in this project is soon too big an investment.
- A number of participating companies as well as the tailor-made company could still use an extra push in the area of sustainability, for example not to use plastic packaging or unnecessary flyers, or to use residual streams as steel for the discovery box...
- Making the Greenkit itself as sustainable and circular as possible, sometimes requires a larger investment in time and money. For example, an attractive, sturdy, reusable box for the Greenkit costs considerably more than the disposable alternative.
- We learned to turn unforeseen problems into an opportunity. For example, by mistake, the first 4,000 growths did not fit in the discovery box. Instead of throwing them away, they are now used to distribute at baby fairs, via hospitals, pharmacies, etc.
WHAT DOES
THE FUTURE HOLD?
In the future, we want to launch two editions of the Greenkit every year throughout Flanders. We will also continue to add content to our website, including additional blog articles, to guide parents-to-be as much as possible towards more sustainable baby products.
We are also looking into the possibility of organising workshops for future parents interested in sustainable choices for their baby and family.
