BRiMM’s First Planet Fund Project: Solar Power For Our Brands

Every business going needs energy – so we decided to start there. Here’s how

At the heart of what we’re building at BRiMM is a new model of commerce. 

Where every purchase powers positive change. 

We’re setting out to invest a minimum of 10% of revenue into our Planet Fund, which in turn is investing in initiatives to lower the impact of the brands we stock.

So what does that all actually mean? Let’s showcase our first example. 

With our first Planet Fund initiative, we’re working with two innovative energy companies; Urban Chain and OneZero Energy in order to bring more renewable energy to the businesses who create the products we sell. This means that the brands you see on BRiMM can switch to a cleaner energy mix, with the aim of reaching 100% renewable. And here’s the kicker: they can do it for less than they are paying now.

Why are we starting with solar? Because every business, no matter what they make or sell, needs energy. It doesn’t matter if they’re making beauty products, food or home goods: energy is the common thread.

We know there’s a lot of greenwashing and distrust around how ‘sustainable’ businesses that declare themselves to be actually are, so we wanted to start with a project that would demonstrate our intent and deliver results quickly, in a measurable way. While we do intend to support our brands with packaging, supply chain or business model innovations in the future, we know that those will take longer and are likely to be specific to individual categories. So that's why we’re starting with renewable energy: it impacts them all. 

And we’re kicking this off now because we didn't want to wait until the end of our first year to see how much money we made before supporting this initiative. We will report on how much we do make though and how it measures up to what we’ve spent. 

Our hope is that this first solar project can kick-off a flywheel. While we’re not going to be making any money from the project, there might be a small amount of profit made which we intend to reinvest in further solar panels.

So, the more our community grows, the more solar we can install. The more solar we install, the more brands can lower their impact. It’s a flywheel, powered by real action from our members.

This is just the start.

Beyond solar, we’ll be working with our brands to find other ways to help them lower their footprint. We’ll do this together, through workshops to understand their needs and impact roadmaps. And we’ll also listen to our members to understand what they think we can do. 

If you run a business and want to cut your energy bills and your emissions, get in touch as we can connect you into the project – we’re not limiting it just to the brands we stock. Likewise,  if you have a roof that could host solar panels, let us know. The more spaces we can use, the more brands we can help.

We believe in lessening impact, not just offsetting it. We’re not promising the world. But we are promising to act, to measure and to share how we get on. If you want to be part of it, we’d love to hear from you.