malika bouazzaoui
Anahi Arellano Cuen
David Coronado
Gerardo Colin
EGADE Business School Tecnologico de Monterrey
Ezequiel Reficco
Keep this story going! Share below!
The founder of ONI started with the idea of wanting to do something for the environment, and came to produce shoes form recycled plastic bottles. The product wasn’t attractive enough to her taste and this is how she ended up working with indigenous communities to bring a unique fashion style to her product. She took advantage of the diversity in her own country, Mexico, and collaborates with a number of different indigenous communities, which each have their own style and typical embroideries.
What ONI does is create sport shoes with PET bottles, bags made with eco-leather and a newly launched line of jackets, also made from PET plastic. These last two products also include handmade embroidery based on the fair trade principles. They are all produced in a maquila in the city of León, Guanajuato.
The PET bottles are first collected, sterilized and milled, leaving small flakes, then with the heat a very thin thread is obtained that comes directly from the recycled bottle, and finally it is spun or knitted in different ways to turn it into fabric. ONI use the PET fiber to give the body to the footwear. The PET undergoes a process of transformation using heat, which makes the recycled plastic become fabric, a thick and porous fiber that allows the footwear to breathe. The thick fiber is formed to give an extra cushion to ONI’s footwear.
“At ONI we always seek to grow, so that all the time we can improve, create, invent and do many incredible things, more products with innovative materials and good for the world, and do more activities that help these social and environmental causes that we care about and support” Sara Sacal Reyek, founder and owner.
Sara Sacal believes that ONI is her best means to transform Mexico: Through the company, she is a voice for the planet and for the 15 million people from indigenous communities in her country, Mexico. ONI shows that there are ways to make products benefit the ecology, while being of good quality, modern and very beautiful. ONI also give voice to social causes, exemplifying that a company can have profits and can also help different causes or passions. ONI wants to demonstrate that a small business can work with fair trade and without resorting to exploitative labor practices. They show the beauty of Mexican crafts, demonstrating that it is possible to combine the cultural and the modern, the millenary and the current, and that Mexico has a lot of beauty to give. ONI seeks to generate a change in the environment with their products and initiatives.
Goal 8: Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work
• Sustainable economic growth: ONI’s business model is based on its recycled plastic obtained cheaply through strategic alliances with water companies. ONI’s business model is based on a triple bottom line.
• Employment and decent work: ONI’s generates decent work thorough the principle of FAIR trade, employing indigenous communities based in Zinacantán, San Andrés Larrainzar. Michoacán, Cuetzalan and la Sierra de Hidalgo, paying them on their terms.
• ONI supports, promotes and celebrates Mexican products and commerce promoting indigenous culture by cooperating with them and naming their products after indigenous communities.
Goal 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns:
• ONI contributes to this goal through its inputs production model based on recycled bottles. Using 3 to 4 bottles of PET per product ensures a sustainable consumption which not only reduces ONI’s ecological footprint but helps to reduce ecological footprint from plastic bottles consumers. In Mexico, only 15% of plastic bottles are recycled and each Mexican produce on average around 8 kilos of PET plastic waste per year.
Goal 15: Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss:
• ONI have reduced environmental damage and accumulation of plastic waste such as PET bottles (reusing at least 40,000 PET bottles so far).
• ONI contributes to environmental projects with part of their profits to be more impactful and diversify that impact. ONI has been creating green roofs and have lots of future plans.
• ONI has used part of its profits to plant 120 trees.
Goal 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal:
• ONI entered into a partnership with Zoe Water in order to increase and entice recycling plastic bottles. Zoe produced a Christmas bottle edition which granted clients a10% of discount in ONI’s Christmas design shoes if clients delivered the bottle to be recycled.
In addition, ONI has been using their profits for a greater impact. While it is not core to their business, it is key in their philosophy:
• ONI has donated 60 pairs of tennis shoes to people in need.
• ONI gave 10% of the sale of a specific model to the victims of the 19th September earthquake
The innovative idea of using recycled plastic and indigenous design has opened a niche for ONI who are able to sell their products at a premium. This means that the company is financially sustainable, healthy and growing. Initial funding (30,000 pesos) was raised from family and friends, and since then the company has not needed external financial support because they have been able to generate enough revenue to reinvest in the company and have profits, including profits invested into social and environmental causes.
Since 2015, ONI has grown from a one person company to having 5 permanent employees, and a lot of contractors all over Mexico. No employee has left the company yet and has been very little turnover with providers since the fair pay and good treatment retain employees and partners. We know that the strategy of the owner has been focused on relationship building and win-win results for all in her supply chain. For instance, one of the objectives of ONI is to guarantee a secure income for the indigenous communities in order to preserve their handicrafts, their culture and their heritage.
Partnership and the key business model of using recycled plastic also means that their primary raw material is cheap and they can maintain low production costs and ensure a good profit margin.
ONI received the Ibero entrepreneurship prize in 2015 for creating a financially viable business with social and environmental causes at its core.
At the moment, the indigenous communities ONI collaborates with are in Zinacantán, San Andrés Larrainzar, Michoacán, Cuetzalan and Hidalgo. The pay is fair trade; ONI doesn't bargain with them and lets them decide on the worth of their work. Before this takes place, ONI has given finance classes to the whole community so they understand how to value their time and how to make a profit. ONI has a huge respect for their culture and work and the whole partnership reflects this. Thanks to ONI, people who are usually exploited by the textile industry can have decent work with decent pay.
ONI also contributes to making the diversity of the Mexican indigenous comunities known and valued by the world. Indeed, the whole supply chain for all of ONI products is based in Mexico, which contributes to the economic development of the country.
In addition, ONI contributes to reducing Mexico’s very high levels of pollution. Mexico occupies the 2nd place in the world in terms of plastic consumption and consumes more than 9 billion bottles in the country. So far, ONI has reused more than 40,000 recycled PET bottles. As the business expands, they hope to increase this number. The ambition is also to emulate other companies to use recycled plastic as primary raw material, by demonstrating how easy it is to reuse and how profitable the business can be. This is the ultimate vision of ONI, that other companies would copy her business model so less waste is produced.
Get stories of positive business innovations from around the world delivered right to your inbox.
ONI is a social enterprise producing shoes, jackets and bags from recycled PET bottles. All products are embroidered by Mexican indigenous communities which receive fair pay and fair treatment for their work. Part of the profit from ONI is reinvested in projects supporting different social and environmental causes.
