INTERVIEW #39 A GOOD COMPANY
Based in: Lidingö, Sweden
Founded in: 2019
Founded by: Anders Ankarlid and two friends
Stores: We ship worldwide. We do not have any physical stores but we do have physical retailers in Sweden (Tele 2), Germany (Deutche Telecom), UK (Hutch), Denmark (3), Norway (Eplehuset)
Website: https://agood.com
Price range: €6- €165, Everything from our bottle lids to our humanium pen, made out of recycled weapons
Why we love them: Never ever buying phone cases from other brands again, A Good Company it is. True, honest and smart that’s how we would like to describe this Swedish lifestyle brand. And hey, they have more than just phone cases. Check them out and make better choices!
What is A Good Company and why did you start?
We are A Good Company, a Swedish jaw-dropping lifestyle brand transforming mindless consumption into conscious decisions, a certified B-Corp and are carbon negative since day one! We produce high quality 100% sustainable everyday products with quite a unique range of materials. They include high-end notebooks made from recycled stone and bottles made from upcycled Swedish steel to mobile cases made from linseed and electronic toothbrush heads made from bamboo. I promise you have never seen or heard of anything like this before!
In 2018, Sweden was faced with devastating environmental effects. We reached the highest temperatures in Sweden in record history and this was followed by droughts and forest fires across all of Sweden. As you may know Sweden is covered in forests, so this summer caused a real threat to our climate and I knew if we carried on living like we are, it could only get dramatically worse. On a more personal note, my wife’s family has a farm which has been within their family for generations. They were faced with their cattle dying of thirst and as a result of the burnt grass they were then also left with no food. Summer 2018 was a turning point for me, I saw little hope for the future and saw more had to be done to stop these cataclysmic environmental effects. I gained confidence to create A Good Company as I focused on an area which could reduce the impacts on the environment but was also an area which I was familiar with, eCommerce. I started to review mine and my family's consumption patterns and tried to find the best ways to attack consumption levels and benefit the environment. By doing so I felt like I had found a way where I could make a real difference.
What is your sustainability profile?
Our entire business model is based on our company values and we started this whole journey with societal and environmental sustainability in mind. However, that doesn’t stop us from continuously trying to improve our way of working and our impact on the planet.
When creating our products we ask these 4 questions:
Is this a product that many people use in their everyday lives?
Is it usually made from environmentally harmful materials?
Can we make a good product using a better material?
Can we produce it in a responsible way?
For us to start the developing process, the answer must be “yes” for all of these questions. We also design products which are either biodegradable, recyclable or completely circular. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping, we ensure that the production site is close to where the raw material is sourced and shipped from. Also, all of our suppliers must sign our Supplier Code of Conduct, this ensures we are supporting an ethical working environment. Most of our partners already have great waste-water treatments and use renewable energy, but for some we encouraged them to branch out and replace old energy sources with renewable ones.
Going beyond our products, we have A Good Foundation which was launched early 2020. We find environmental and societal sustainability efforts across the globe and donate 4% of all net sales to the foundation. If you want to read more about our sustainability, read our 2020 Impact Report here! Or if you are interested in all the materials that we use, check here.
How and where are the products produced?
We have a wide range of products, all which have different production journeys. We choose suppliers with unique innovations, techniques and stories. All of them share our ambition to innovate for the better.
Our mobile cases are locally grown in Sweden, through our wonderful partnership between four local businesses. Our favourite farmer Arvid grows linseed plants and gives the surplus to a small factory a short distance away. This is where the linseed is turned into pellets, then after another short trip the pellets are moulded into cases. The last stop is at a local paintshop where they apply each print by hand using organic paints.
If you want to know a bit more about where all our products are produced, check out this link. https://agood.com/blogs/our-factories
Which is your most sold product?
Our A Good Mobile Cases are our most popular products, in particular the design “A Good Mobile Case Color Splash” and our solid designs.
Where does A Good Company find its inspiration?
We find inspiration from our community, we gain feedback on how we can improve our products as well as new product ideas. We take their feedback and go through a trial and error period until we reach the perfect product (some products have taken a couple of years to make perfect).
What have been and are the major challenges?
All our products involve A LOT of experimentation. We need to find materials that are both sustainable and functional, and by doing so we have spent a lot of time and investments for products to not end up how they were supposed to. Some extreme ideas include, our soluble film packaging for poo bags or garbage bags, which allegedly dissolved into a glass of water and would be harmless to drink. I thought this sounded too good to be true, so I put his claims to the test. This was a bad idea. I wouldn't wish it on anyone to drink what I made myself drink, and the side effects were a bad hangover for a couple of days after. We therefore didn’t move forward with this product, so there was a lot of time and investment wasted. Another product was our woodless pencil which was an on and off project for 2 years, yet when we finally received the pre-production product, Martin our product designer accidentally dropped it on the floor and sadly wasn’t quite the ‘unbreakable’ pencil we were hoping for. So likewise with the film packaging, this product has not quite made it to the shelves.
This is something we can’t really overcome as it is all part of what we are and what our main aim is. To find the perfect suppliers and material to create functional everyday products which do not harm the environment. This of course takes time and we do need to invest in them in order to test both the functionality and environmental impact.
What has been and are the largest gain?
Our team. It’s grown since 2019, and as I said before we’re so lucky we get to work with such a diverse group of people who are extremely dedicated. We have had many large companies reach out to us to help them become more sustainable. Some examples include, GANNI, DB Journey, Togetherband and Brewdog. Stay tuned for some extremely high end collaborations coming soon!
What do you think needs to change in the fashion industry to make it more sustainable?
Fast-fashion brands, who produce cheap clothes at a fast rate to maximize the latest trends are a huge issue in the fashion industry. Transparency is the key issue here, not enough information is presented to the customers about the environmental cost of their purchase. Companies like Make The Label Count, who are an international coalition of organisations, want to ensure clothing sustainability claims in the EU are credible. By doing so, it will educate consumers about the impact of their purchase, in hope to think twice about their purchase.
What is the best thing about A Good Company?
We believe the best thing about us is the ease of making the switch from products which are harmful to the environment to our environmentally conscious products. We create products that are stylish yet sustainable, we have a subscription service on products like our toilet paper and toothbrushes so you never run out of essential products.