by Yolanda Ndlovu, founder of South African lifestyle brand Essy Sandisiwe
I run an eco business and have consciously chosen to do so because of my background. I have always loved nature, the preservation of the environment, and I have always been an activist. I make accessories out of discarded fabrics and/or materials that are biodegradable. This has been my life for the past five years and I don’t think I am about to change anytime soon.
We must realize that going green is not just for legal compliance or a marketing tool used to sell products to clients who will not buy anything else. We don’t preserve the environment for ourselves. We have legacies. We do it so that the future generations can still enjoy the pleasures of the green earth that we had and our parents had. We do it so that we don’t have to tell them how the earth looked at a certain point in time, and we don’t have to explain why it is not so anymore because we could not take care of the environment during our lifetimes. Going green is not a fad or trend we will leave at some point; it is and should be a way of life.
I have always been asked why I would have such a business in Africa. Well, honestly it’s to protect the very environment that has fed us since the beginning of time. That is what we feed on. According to www.tradingeconomics.com, agriculture has contributed 69,544.51 ZAR Million in the second quarter of 2018 alone. So even if you have installed solar panels, have gone paperless in the office, switch off all electrical appliances at the end of the day, all of that has a positive impact on the environment. Going green helps minimize the amount of trash that goes into the water, soil and the air. We should all be playing our part in going green, in our businesses and in our personal lives.
About Yolanda Ndlovu
Yolanda Nlovu is an eco-entrepreneur and the founder of lifestyle brand Essy Sandisiwe, an accessories brand that makes products from waste materials. The business is currently based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
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