On the odd random occassion some of us might sit on our couches and wander to ourseves – “what if?” For some of us it lasts a micro second, for others this thought is in fact a routine affair, particularly for those considering everyday scenarios in their career or business life.
Aayu Naturals founders Ayeshi & Ruwan have taken a stab at the world of business but in doing so, wanted to strive and achieve something a little bit more.
When two people who have a loving marriage, cosy house, the jobs and a gorgeous growing baby, yet they still sit back together and wonder “what more and what if?” – then this is when we can take a closer look and see if there is something special about this little “what if” notion that is brewing between the couple’s heart and heads.
Aayu is a start up business with a vision to make accessible products that are filled with natural goodness and vitality, their current product range is small but their focus is to grow this range to providing as close to natural products that have as little impact on the environment as possible.
With the couple’s Sri Lankan family heritage, they set out to promote and maintain a business branding that upholds the cultural values and bring to the world a more holistic view of Sri Lanka and the delights and insights that can only be seen by visiting the country itself. They hope to bring a greater awareness to the country, culture and people itself over and above what is currently found when looking in travel resources. Within the first steps towards this vision the couple started with a building a product that focussed on creating an envrionmentally and sustainable structure that would set the foundation for the branding and cultural awareness to come.
“We created Aayu Naturals because of the need, we feel, for more businesses to aim to be sustainable and environmentally friendly. Businesses have a large impact on the environment”.
“Tackle the Sustainabilty & the Environment?? OK babe – we’re onto the Big Picture Stuff!”
So how do we make this Sustainable? Which part should be Environmentally Friendly? How do we minimize the impact? Where do we begin? What If?
Here’s the very first few “what if’s?” the couple considered
“What if we simply think of our local take away shop? They’d obviously need electricity to run their shop and other appliances such as fridges, ovens, gas to cook. Then on top of that they would probably use industrial chemicals to clean their shop. They would also use plastic, foam or paper packaging to wrap the food in. These all end up, someway shape or form, back in the environment. Our question was how can we create a business that has minimal impact on the environment? That’s why we thought we could experiment, in a sense, with Aayu Naturals to see if we could create a business that relied on nature, without causing it harm, and ensuring it was sustainable”.
There are a multitude of definitions in business nowadays for ‘Environmentally conscious’ and ‘Sustainability’, but we found most intriguing about this little mum & dad business was the enormity and a level of courage (that some might feel is needed) but was not at all an obstacle that this couple had even considered. To start with they were simply looking to become role models in society and felt they had a chance at making an impact by choosing to run a business which values so many wholesome intentions all in one.
The brand has a foundation which begins with the attempt to set up a sustainable practice from the get go. Looking to save time, costs, gaining on efficiencies which are long term and easy to implement.
So, does that mean that everyone needs to run a business out of natural goods?
“No, not at all” they answered.
However, what if you do decide to go down a similar path? What if you want to find ways, even small methods to make a difference wherever you can?
We dug a little deeper and investigated Aayu’s operations to uncover a few areas of efficiency that worked and that can lead to considerations that anyone can have when deciding to become a sustainably run and environmentally friendly business.
These are the 3 Key “What If’s?”
- We can slowly Influence
- Choices, Wisdom, careless, reckless, not being only in it for the money
- All in the choices you make, should be responsible choices
- Analyse and see where you can make some changes – what are the sources & resources your business utilises that have an impact the environment? When you analyse your processes you will discover that nearly each one does
- We can start to Inspire
- Role model, removing Self limiting beliefs
- Select a business that at it’s core aims to take action & do things the right way & aim to be sustainable and environmentally friendly
- Gaining customer feedback to Constantly refining & Constantly growing to find the quick inefficiencies that make a difference. Going straight to your customer base will help you connect and engage with them and hear the direct voice of the customer
- We can hope to Impact
- More than the singular consumer, Businesses do naturally have a large impact on the environment
- Break it down to simple process steps – See what parts are moveable, changeable, need refining
- Strength in numbers by choosing suppliers that had sustainable practices
- Making a dint in such a global affair means that outside of being a responsible consumer, the choices that a business make are generally scaling to a larger proportion
- The process is not supposed to be difficult so setting up robust internal practices to improve and reduce our impact through scanning and rebuilding our processes efficiently and removing or reducing at the possible impact points is key
“And it’s not easy. We don’t claim to be perfect although we’re trying to aim for perfection in that process”.
For Focus Now looking into the insides of Aayu business we remind ourselves that though we can implement and prepare some small steps, change is not always easy, however aiming to improve the end-to-end processes, operations, strategy and decision making will lead towards a quality result that this inspirational couple are hoping to achieve.
Focus Now Thoughts:
How sustainable a lifestyle do you intend to have? Do you already as a consumer think about these things? What practices can you update inside your existing business? How can you implement into almost any business idea the notion of environmentally friendly and of sustainability?
Like Ayeshi & Ruwan – Let’s also give it a try?
