Sustainable Eyewear Startup Plants Seeds of Growth

The August edition of the Business Review USA is now live!

What's the point of looking good if you can't feel good about what you're wearing?

Woodzee is an innovative Northern California-based eyewear company that has you covered on both fronts. Their all-wood sunglasses and eyewear come in a wide array of stylish frames and collections. But the company is also dedicated to recycling, re-purposing, and replanting to promote a healthier relationship between style and nature.

It starts with the wood. The sunglasses are all made from various varieties of 100 percent natural wood, including bamboo, pearwood, and even Canadian maple taken from re-purposed skateboard decks as part of its Skateboard Series. But the use of natural and reusable materials for glasses was just the sapling of the company’s eco-conscious vision.

Though many companies are paying lip service to the idea of giving back by dedicating a percentage of profits to a charity, Woodzee gives their customers the power to actively participate in the process by way of the Woodzee Trees Project. With the purchase of any item on the website, a customer is able to select a continent to which a portion of the sale is donated, with each location represented by a select non-profit group working directly to maintain the world’s forests.

Read related content:

• Michael Witham on Startups
• Obama Signs Small Business JOBS Act into Law
• Tesla Motors Is Revving Its Engine For Success

The company has also keep their carbon footprint light, with the Woodzee Recycle Program, which gives those who have purchased a pair of glasses the chance to recycle them by sending the glasses back to the company, in any condition, and in return receive a discount on a new product.

Woodzee then sorts the recycled glasses, donating any that are salvageable to organizations that will provide them to a person in need. For glasses that have seen better days, the company recycles the components for use in future pairs and reuses the wood for packing material, allowing the consumer to have a zero waste experience.

Even the packaging grows on you. The tags that come on a new pair of sunglasses are made from recycled paper and contain seeds: plant them in a quarter inch of soil and add water, and they’ll grow. Their boxes will soon be made from this same material.

Woodzee’s vision isn’t just limited to recycling though; it’s a full-circle approach to sourcing, creating, selling, and ultimately recycling their products that acts as a model for sustainable companies to follow.