Vadims Ozols, Linda Lejiete

Founder of OAK Organic

Stories of sustainability experts, leading ecopreneurs and bold ideas that drive the world towards a sustainable future.

How has been your journey in the sustainability and ecopreneurship space so far?

OAK Organic is a family owned brand of environment and nature friendly products to bring more ecological and social sustainability in the household product market. We trust that even the most basic things in life deserve to be rethought to be more functional and environmental friendly.

We believe in taking small steps to have a more sustainable lifestyle and a better world one day at a time. Securing our planet’s future for our children and all future generations.

We have studied economics, business basics, social relationship and project management. We have worked in different places, the biggest and most interesting was aircraft manufacturing process management and engineering. Now we have kids and we changed our lifestyle and routine a lot and founded our own brand “OAK Organic” to help our world get cleaner and allow people to choose eco-friendly products and live more sustainable life.

What do you want to achieve with your initiative OAK?

Our daily use of products could partner with nature by limiting waste, reducing the global footprint and preserving natural resources. We want to build a brand that matters, and to help improve people’s health and the environment by offering more eco-friendly and stylish alternatives from natural and biodegradable materials without toxic and chemicals. We are creating a range of innovative and sustainable lifestyle products which are without the use of harmful substances. We also reduce the amount of waste going to landfill with completely zero waste packaging including plastic-free cardboard boxes.

Why are you interested and drive behind topics like climate impact and sustainability?

Ethics, integrity and principles matter to us, and resonate within every decision we make. We don’t want to make any promises we can’t stand and we want to be honest about our products and how truly eco-friendly they are.

We are aware that we’re not perfect. But we strive to do our best to regain ecological integrity, enhance human well-being and keep improving our Planet Earth. We're driven by the fact that our products reduce the number of plastic waste ending up in the ocean.

What do you think are the problems we need to address on a global scale? How can we achieve this and drive change?

We think the main problem is that sustainability and environmental friendliness are long term issues. And for people it is very hard to focus on long term goals within lifespan, but here we are talking about problems and goals we would like to achieve in many generations. We think problem solving should be focused on families with children and grandchildren. For them these issues are more relevant.

How can individuals contribute to accelerate the world towards a more sustainable future?

We think people would like to become the best versions of themselves. In our opinion, decisions are more personal and egocentric and less about the environment itself. And this is a time when topics - pollution/sustainability is very popular. Unfortunately problems are real, not just popular.

We think CO2 emissions can be separated into 2 parts - production process and biodegradation. We suppose it doesn’t matter to produce plastic items or organic items, if we use fossil energy or from renewable sources (everything made with fossil energy at least for now). We think emissions there will be more or less the same if we calculate accurately enough. But at least we can choose products made from organic materials. In biodegradation they will emit the same CO2 plants collected while growing, not like plastic which will emit additional CO2.

What is your vision of a more sustainable future? In which technologies and trends do you believe?

We think the course of climate change is much bigger than all of us. And there is little we can do in the short-term. But we can remind again and again that this topic is really important, and our personal, social and political decisions should be in accordance with these issues. We should reduce the use of plastic, fossil fuels, live slower, use less, and be more natural (like tribes in the movie Avatar).

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