Innovation

ChicoBag started as one man's mission to eliminate plastic bags from landfills and our environment. Andy Keller, the CEO, and founder of ChicoBag saw the numerous plastic bags that littered his community in Chico, California, and decided to do something about it. He started by sewing his own reusable shopping bags to eliminate the single-use plastic bags. Keller has since grown ChicoBag to a sustainable B Corporation that sells reusable and durable shopping bags that each individual can replace over one thousand, five hundred single-use plastic shopping bags over the course of their lifetimes.

Additionally, ChicoBag has expanded to eliminate other single-use products that contaminate our environment, such as their bottle sling, travel pack, and reusable utensil sets. For instance, each set of bamboo utensils has the potential to replace 1,300 single-use plastic utensils throughout their lifetime. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ChicoBag again stepped up to its mission to increase environmental sustainability and eliminate single-use pollution by creating reusable masks that will replace over 500 single-use masks throughout their lifetime.

These products have the potential to eliminate over a billion single-use products from the environment every year and contribute to ChicoBag's mission of helping humanity bag its single-use habit. The elimination of all of these single-use plastic bags, plastic utensils, and disposable facemasks will prevent massive amounts of waste from entering the environment. Furthermore, ChicoBag embodies responsible production through its commitment to ethical manufacturing and certification as a Climate Neutral Certified and Benefit Corporation. ChicoBag's focus on the environment and preventing waste and other pollution significantly contribute to the United Nations' Sustainability Goals of responsible production and consumption, climate action, and life below water.

Inspiration

Andy Keller first thought of the idea of ChicoBag when he visited his local landfill and noticed the massive number of single-use plastic bags that covered the landfill. He described this experience stating, "I was at the landfill, and I saw what this relatively small town throws away in a day, and it was a huge amount of trash, covered in plastic bags. It was a windy day they [the plastic bags] were blowing out of the landfill that day." He goes on to say that "it occurred to me that I never thought about plastic bags, how many I use, what they were made out of, and what happened to them at the end of their life. Thinking back at it, what was congealing in my mind was that those bags were properly disposed of, yet, they were still entering into the environment." On his way home, he began to notice that they were not just in the landfill but also in his community, in trees, on lawns, and on fences. This experience impacted Keller enough to stop using plastic bags himself, bought a sewing machine, and sewed himself what would be ChicoBag's first reusable bag. He said that "I wanted to make a reusable bag that I would not forget at home or in the car."

Keller also describes customer emails as his continuing motivation and inspiration for ChicoBag. He describes hearing how ChicoBag has helped people live a more sustainable lifestyle as being very motivating. He describes how "we [ChicoBag] get letters from saying how our products achieve what they have wanted to achieve for a long time [using less plastic and leaving a smaller footprint]. That is super motivating because that is the whole purpose why I created the product."

Overall impact

ChicoBag's main goal is to reduce the amount of pollution in the environment and to preserve nature's beauty. Plastic bags and other single-use plastic items continue to be a pervasive problem both in our landfills and our environment. ChicoBag puts out an annual impact report that measures ChicoBag's effect on the environment and how successful it was in its mission to end the single-use habit. In their 2020 report, ChicoBag estimates that the products they sold in 2020 have the potential to help humanity easily refuse 1,010,557,384 single-use products. Even more extraordinarily, ChicoBag's 2020 Impact Report estimates that since its founding in 2005, ChicoBag has helped potentially eliminate 23,650,433,748 single-use items from being used.

Furthermore, ChicoBag is able to proudly claim that 100% of their carbon emissions were offset in 2020. ChicoBag can offset its carbon footprint by reducing packaging and better planning shipping to use more efficient sea shipments over their more polluting air counterparts. In addition to that, ChicoBag offsets the rest of its footprint by donations to organizations Bonneville Environmental Foundation and CarbonFund.org, which use the money to remove carbon from the atmosphere. From this, we see that ChicoBag is able to sustainably produce and sell their products which makes a massive real-world difference removing plastics from the environment.

Business benefit

ChicoBag is dedicated to Zero Waste throughout every aspect of their business. They are dedicated to bagging the single-use habit by removing ALL bags and different iterations of all single-use items. Along with reusable bags, Chicobag purchased To-Go Ware increasing the products offered to include reusable utensils and other reusable containers. ChicoBag has created products for both other businesses such as National Parks and Universities to customers, whether hikers, parents, and anyone interested in cutting single-use waste. ChicoBag focuses on creating sustainable products from the cradle to the grave. As a B Corporation, ChicoBag focuses on choices that benefit stakeholders of the company in addition to shareholders. "People have rights, citizens have responsibilities, the same is true for businesses," Keller stated during the interview. As a B Corporation, their goal is to protect the planet and consider their own impact in every aspect of their business. When using ChicoBag products, users know that quality, zero-waste operations, and responsible manufacturing have been the focus in every aspect: from their supply chain manufacturers water treatment and employee treatment to the end of life exchange where returned products are reused through their Pay It Forward program where products are sent to low income families or recycled and repurposed. Through this program, 9,637 pre-loved bags - both ChicoBag and other brands - have found a second life during 2020. These efforts helped ChicoBag keep 93% of waste out of landfills, according to their 2020 impact report, with their ultimate goal being to achieve 0%. These programs have greatly helped ChicoBag in working towards their objective, and their products continue to make an impact once the items are paid forward in their second life.

Social and environmental benefit

ChicoBag hopes to help protect our planet from pollution as a result of the wasteful use of single-use products. By making changes to reusable products, every person can contribute to helping preserve the beauty for years to come. Since the beginning, ChicoBag has received numerous letters from customers who have found and used their products, for Chicobag, this is their motivator. Helping customers who have always wanted to transition to more sustainable products achieve their goals of sustainability. In addition, ChicoBag’s education on the negative impact of single-use bags led to the single-use plastic bag industry stating that ChicoBag was irreparably harming their business and attempting to silence them through a lawsuit. ChicoBag, however, is only beginning to help humanity bag the habit. The plastic bag industry now has had to incorporate a warning message printed on the plastic bags asking for the bag to be knotted to prevent bags from being windblown litter. Since then, ChicoBag has continued to grow towards helping humanity bag the single-use habit.

Along with helping customers bag the habit, they have entered and won a challenge called Beyond the Bag. This challenge seeks to identify a long-term solution to getting goods home and reinvent the retail bag. Beyond the Bag partners include CVS Health, Target, and Walmart, and other large retailers looking to work with the challenge winners to implement a program that focuses on reusable products to help their customers. Through the ChicoBag program, customers would be able to rent or borrow bags should they forget their bags at home. Customers pay a deposit for their bags then receive the deposit back once the bag is returned. These bags then are returned to be used by other future customers. This prevents the common reusable bag barrier where customers forget their reusable bags and end up either buying cheaper bags or ending up with a closet full of unused reusable bags. By alleviating this barrier, customers would be able to consistently make sustainable choices without the waste that accompanies other methods.

Not only does ChicoBag have an impact on the end of the line usage of single-use products, but it has prioritized knowing all aspects of their supply chain to ensure all tiers of their supply chain meet their high ethical and sustainability standards. A part of the Fair Labor Association, ChicoBag often checks in with their manufacturing plants in China, Cambodia, and India, where they focus on ethical treatment and helping to educate the manufacturers on these practices. Additionally, ChicoBag manufacturing plants are checked to ensure that there are no issues that could have an environmental impact. Things such as water treatment within the manufacturing plant are checked to ensure proper and environmentally friendly treatment. From start to finish, ChicoBag is dedicated to its mission and business. It is a model for the positive impact businesses can have on society, the environment, and the planet through everyday actions and choices.

Interview

Andy Keller, CEO & Founder