Greener Pastures with Terragram – Meet the Change-Making Founders!

We are paranoid about everything that is accelerating climate change and the global plastic pollution crisis.

The demand for ethical and sustainable products is booming now more than ever. Consumers are concerned about where their products come from and what it is made of. As the coronavirus has taken over the world by a storm – the consumers are rethinking their habits, and businesses are pivoting their models towards social responsibility by creating face masks out of recycled shirts and plastic!

Clearly, there is room for more changes to incorporate sustainability into operations. What are the challenges ahead? Is there a solution?

Making ethical and sustainable living easy is the centrifugal focus of the social impact start-up Terragram founded by 3 young changemakers – Sneha, Aanand, and Shiv.

Terragram is a social impact startup focusing on aiding businesses to adapt green, sustainable practices and progress towards the goals of zero waste and promoting a circular economy, in this process, upscaling the brand image as well, through green marketing.

We intend to create a win-win situation for the business, the customers and the planet.

In Conversation with the Founders :

What made you start Terragram and what problem does it solve?

If you have ever tried making a switch to eco-friendly, zero waste products you would have realized how hard it is due to the lack of options in this category. There are more alternatives coming up, but the scene is still catching up. We initially thought we would offer A-Z alternatives to make a convenient eco-friendly switch, but that idea was not scalable considering we will have to find solutions for a wide range of products. So, instead of re-inventing the wheel, we decided we will advise existing businesses to make a switch in the way they operate and making eco-friendly products the mainstream norm.

We also share tips for all to switch to a sustainable lifestyle on our Instagram Handle @terragram_army. After all, each person’s contribution contributes to a whole.

Tell us about your team and how did you meet each other?

Aanand and I are best buds and he brought Shiv into the team. Aanand takes part in green trial treks quite often. Aanand and I along with another friend started conducting sign language workshops under the name Musign aiming to create an inclusive environment for the deaf community. Shiv co-founded a NGO – Kadam which is creating a lot of difference with their campaign – #bloodypure which aims to create awareness about menstrual hygiene and make cotton pads available to girls and women in villages. We all share a passion to bring about a healthy, sustainable change and that’s what makes us hit it off as a team.

As founders, what are you paranoid about?

We are paranoid about everything that is accelerating climate change and the global plastic pollution crisis. Also, businesses all this while have mostly worked around the topline and bottom-line. So we get a lot of push back when we approach them as they have a preconceived notion that sustainable solutions are not scalable. So it requires a lot of convincing and homework on how to make things work when we approach businesses per se. And when it comes to creating awareness among people in general about ethical consumerism and minimalism, you hear a lot of reasons as to why they won’t be able to make a switch. The most common one being convenience and accessibility of eco-friendly solutions which is something we are trying to address. But when you manage to convince a business to make a switch or when you create some awareness and change a person’s thought process to align with sustainability goals it gives us a sense of hope and a possibility of finding a solution to take the load off the eco-system and restore the balance. And that’s what keeps us going. Even a small win is a grand victory!

The future trajectory

We have approached a couple of businesses and one of them is sample testing the alternatives we have suggested. But with the lockdown kicking in we haven’t gotten any further from there. But we have a very positive outlook towards our initiatives and hopefully when the lockdown ends and normalcy returns we shall be in a position to announce our first win!

Kudos to Team Terragram for navigating us to a better world!

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