Jennifer and Laura, friends in business who get along way better than their pets do! They started their online woman-owned small business, The Kind Pet, to help pet owners reduce their pet’s carbon paw-print.
The Kind Pet is a new, online sustainable pet store helping pet owners make eco-friendly choices to reduce their pet’s carbon footprint.
As pet owners, Laura Dolgy and Jennifer Roberge realised how wasteful taking care of their pets could be and thus were inspired to help people make smarter, greener choices. For example, pet food contributes to 64 million tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of driving 13.6 million cars, being dumped into the atmosphere per year according to this study. And then there is pet food packaging, Pet Sustainability Coalition estimates that 99 percent of pet food bags end up in the landfill. These numbers are alarming and they are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Many people are trying to live more sustainably and that’s amazing! But what we realised is that not everyone is thinking about how things like their pet’s food choices and waste management can contribute to the climate crisis we’re in right now and we wanted to really help bring that to the forefront,” says Dolgy.
When the two became pet owners, Dolgy with cat Charlotte and Jennifer with dog Oakley, they decided to use their extensive background in eCommerce to enter the online pet business with a sole focus on sustainability.
Dolgy owns her own digital marketing agency, Dolgify, and Roberge founded and operates two other eCommerce stores, so online retail is where they are most comfortable and also where they have both already worked to further their own sustainable goals. Now they are ready to dive into the pet market.
According to Roberge, “The difficult part is that pet sustainability means different things to different people. Not every pet owner is ready for composting their dog’s waste or thinking about shopping for zero waste pet products over nylon toys and poly-filled beds.” Everyone follows their own sustainable path and we wanted to support change, whatever the form that takes. So The Kind Pet was designed around helping customers find the products that best fit their own eco-friendly pet care concerns while educating them on how to take the next step forward in sustainable pet ownership. Customers can shop for products by their sustainable values, like upcycled, plastic-free, handmade, low waste, and more.
Though finding brands to work with them wasn’t easy. Their first questions for suppliers revolved around product life cycle, where products were made, and where ingredients were sourced. “Most big brands wouldn’t even discuss plastic packaging alternatives, or they’d send us to their distributors who couldn’t tell us where the ingredients were sourced, for example. It was quite frustrating – where was the transparency?” says Roberge. This led them to find small, indie brands that really put a social impact and their carbon footprint first and were 100 percent in line with The Kind Pet’s mission.
Dolgy states “We are super proud of the suppliers we’ve found and we’re happy to promote small brands, many who are woman-owned like us, or BIPOC or who promote gender and social equality, which is hugely important to us as well.”
Another important factor for The Kind Pet is giving back. As a woman-owned small business, they strongly believe in the freedom of choice and were deeply saddened by the overturning of Roe vs Wade. This is why The Kind Pet donates 1 percent of all sales to NARAL Pro-Choice America. Another 0.5 percent of sales goes back to support homeless animals through Best Friends Animal Society, which provides adoption, spay/neutering, and educational programs to protect companion animals.
The Kind Pet supports making a kinder, cleaner planet together. Let’s do the best we can to make conscious eco-friendly and socially responsible choices for our pets to reduce their carbon paw-print. No act or change is too small and every bit does help.
To find out more, click HERE.
