I was the eldest child at home and it was very clear to me early on as a kid that I will have to start taking care of the family very soon. We had little money due to which I started working full time at 19 instead of going to college and was fortunate enough to have a rewarding career with great companies like IBM, American express, Randstad and Regi SRL Italy over 14 years BUT my heart remained somewhere else.
A common theme throughout my life has been my care and concern for the planet. Even as a kid I would do things like make newspaper bags so that we could avoid getting plastic bags at home and as far as possible stick to natural solutions for everything. When you have severe sensitivity to chemical products and even smell you learn to find alternatives.
Once when I was on the way back I was walking past a landfill and it was so smelly that I just could not breathe and developed allergies all over. Still, I stood there and saw children picking up trash which broke my heart. I started reading and researching more about better ways of living that don’t hurt the planet so much, that allows us to create less waste and become sustainable. That was probably the first turning point.
I began making shifts first in my life and suggested to my friends and family some of these ideas that they loved and it made me very happy. Slowly I realized that this is the work I need to do for the rest of my life and in April 2021 I left my job to work on Earthist full time. I am amazed at our growth in just 3 months and it gives me hope that people want products that are sustainable alternatives to things that they already use, which shows that they care about the planet. Now the question is – how do we get enough people in the world to make sustainable choices and ditch anything that hurts the planet. If I had to add a certain number on enough people, I would say about 7 billion.
My professional experience of 14 years also taught me that I wanted to build a business that role models a conscious yet profit-making enterprise. That is why all our products at Earthist are made in India and most are made by local, small-scale women artisans across the country. As they say, buy me a fish and I will eat it once, teach me how to fish and I will eat it forever.
With earthist, we wanted to take a holistic approach towards this and make sure that we help others not by giving donations but by empowering them. In addition to this, every sale plants a tree.
I deeply believe that www.earthist.in was always in the making, it just happened now. Starting in April 2021, at the peak of COVID while wave 2 was setting in all over India – I felt that it was now or never, so here I am asking you to give us a chance!
You can follow us on Insta @earthist.in or find us at www.earthist.in
Prerna