The Green Pivot: Why This Brand Moved Sustainability to the Footer

Sustainable Brand Building — Saif Hameed & Leo (Buffy)

Transcript

SAIF: Welcome to another episode of the State of Sustainability. I'm your host Saif Hameed. In this episode, we're going to dive deep into the bowels of sustainable brand building, and I'm super excited to have the founder and CEO of what I consider to be a super sustainable brand — Buffy, in the bedding space. Leo and I have been close friends for a long time, and so this was the sort of casual chat that Leo and I would probably actually have together off an evening. So Leo, let's jump right into it. I want to kick off with this question — you obviously put a lot of thought into starting your business, and I think the bedding sector came a little naturally to you given the work you'd done previously and your family background. But I know you put a lot of careful thought into the brand you were building — one with great intention — and knowing a little about how you think, I know you saw the brand also as an extension of you and your values, and one of the ways you would leave your mark on the world. It looks to me like sustainability was a big part of that brand from the get-go. Am I right? And feel free to say no.

LEO: No, I think you're right. I started this brand about eight years ago as a young man, and I think as a young man you really do want to make a statement. At the time — around 2017, 2018 — it was really the heyday of D2C brand building when Meta costs were cheap, Google didn't cost as much either, and you could really tell a strong story because you weren't just restricted to the old brand building methods. We were very excited about sustainability. We thought there was this really strong rising wave of interest and education and wanted to harness that for sure.

SAIF: I actually noticed, Leo, that you're harnessing it maybe a little less actively in recent years. And what I really liked when you and I did our prep call for this is I loved how you took me to the website and showed me the different blocks and kind of said, "Actually, this is responding to consumer needs." Could you talk us through what you're going to show us? Since most people listen to this on audio, could you walk us through it? Because I thought that was really fascinating — that's direct consumer insight, basically.

LEO: Absolutely. So this is the homepage of the brand's website. As you can see, there isn't all that much about sustainability today, particularly right when you land. And I think that is really reflective of how, over time, as we've iterated and edited the website, what messages and content really needed to rise to the top — what was actually salient to people visiting — is not sustainability. It's not really until probably three-quarters of the way down that we touch on sustainability, and not even super directly. We talk more about the other side of the sustainability coin, which in our case is really around safety. And there isn't a direct sustainability message until really all the way at the bottom, right above our footer, around all of the upcycled plastic we've used over the years. When we started the business, we had in mind this vision that the mass consumer was ready for sustainability — that Gen Z was maturing, getting into their first home, and ready to buy bedding informed by their values. We started by distributing our product in every single Bed Bath & Beyond store in the country — a thousand doors — and that product packaging, the endcaps, all of the design really messaged sustainability. And I think that was the first time we really realised that no, not everyone is ready for this, especially for that to be the first message. In those first few months, we went through several different packaging designs to focus more on things like comfort, or validation and credibility through awards and recognition.

SAIF: I want to come back to the Gen Z profile and the demographic you were targeting, but first I want to lean into this concept of safety and trust, which seems to have been more important as a way to identify your consumers and for your consumers to identify themselves. Could you tell us a little more about what safety and trust means for this consumer?

LEO: I think my sense of the market is that there's really only a small minority who truly care about the technical sustainability of things — meaning its footprint, whether it was consciously made, the resources that went into it. But I actually think the majority of people, when they use the word sustainability, are referring to safety. They're thinking about things like clean beauty or PFAS in your drinking water. When they talk about sustainability, they're actually — I'm not sure how it's transpired — but it's kind of evolved into a "sustainability for me first and for the planet second" kind of thing. Is this going to be better for me? Is it safer for my kids? Is it good to bring into my household? And so we've definitely leaned into that flip side of the same coin as a way of relating sustainability to our consumer in a more meaningful way.

SAIF: You know, sustainability is such a strange term. It's less strange than ESG — ESG means far too many things and far too little in practice — but sustainability is still quite abstract. On the European side it mostly means things like climate change mitigation, water management, and environmental stuff. Whereas in a lot of other markets like Southeast Asia or South Asia, sustainability is about health and something that's good for your family. I think about the cooking oil ads I watched growing up — there's always a mother bringing something for the family table, cooked in this amazing vegetable oil that is just so good for the family. And I think of that now as a sustainability-oriented message, because it's tapping into a sense of values: it's not just that the product does what it should from a performance perspective, it's also that it shouldn't be spinning off microplastics. In the case of bedding, for example. Do you think we're seeing sustainability just meaning different things to different markets — and maybe in North America, safety is what's most important?

LEO: I think you're absolutely right, Saif. Different cultures are going to value sustainability in different ways. Over the last five to seven years, a lot of brand building in the US — whether it's around kitchenware or clean beauty — has really zoned in on this idea of safety and trust. I think it's just been a stronger wedge to get into the consumer's home. But in places like Europe or Japan, sustainability in the true, original sense of the word is probably more valued. These are generally smaller countries, smaller societies, maybe tighter-knit cultures based on fewer resources and more of it being shared in their immediate geography. It's like the tragedy of the commons problem — in Europe, because it's so much denser than North America, you have this feeling that I have to look out for the community and society, and therefore my impact on others becomes much more important. Whereas in North America it's much more about the homestead — what am I bringing into the home, do I trust it, is it something I want here with my family. Which is actually strangely quite similar to the culture I grew up in.

SAIF: I think the whole suburban concept — roads, cars, the homestead, manifest destiny, the American ideal — lends itself to being more focused on your immediate vicinity for sure. Do you think there's a political aspect to this as well? Like, is it also just easier to talk about safety and trust? I've noticed that extended producer responsibility schemes seem to have a much better time going through in the US than anything related to emissions, because waste is seen as a municipal topic — separate from sustainability and ESG. Do you think some areas of this are just less political than others?

LEO: On the point of political — I do think there has been a general rightward swing in politics in the US and in many places. And I think especially among men, there was an Obama era when we were asked to be more conscious and sensitive to certain ethical parameters, including sustainability. And I think nowadays there's almost a sense that — through political leadership and the broader climate — men are invited to be wary of things that might get in the way of progress or true value. I do feel like there's a greater sense of not "I need to open myself up to something and learn more," but more "I need to shield or fend off potential threats." And I think that plays out across many arenas — from gender to feminism to sustainability. Though that's a little armchair theory.

SAIF: No, we're all about armchair theory on this show. But if I move back a few steps and think about your original market targeting — the nature of your product lends itself quite well to a traditional environmental sustainability narrative because it's an alternative material with a different water and emissions intensity profile than the mainstream. But what you're saying is you don't really lean on that so much anymore as an environmental differentiator — even though it's there, it's just not a priority message to land. Which I think is quite interesting.

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[Sponsor break – Altruistiq]

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LEO: Yeah, absolutely. We architected the product in the lab, if you will, to really maximise sustainability impact in a category that is not very mindful or conscious — in terms of water use, chemical use, upcycled plastic, and so on. But as you saw from that website tour, it's basically fallen to the bottom. We've replaced those messages with what has been shown to get more of a response from our customer.

SAIF: Your main markets are New York and California — am I right? Are those the main places where you see traction?

LEO: We imagined it would be that way at first, because we thought those audiences would have a stronger predilection to care about sustainability. And what we discovered was that if we limited ourselves to sustainability and that sensitive audience, we would be a much, much smaller business than we are today. Our customer base is essentially one-to-one with geographic population density in the US.

SAIF: No way. So it literally is a proper representation of the country?

LEO: Yeah, we've mapped it out and it looks just like population distribution. And I think that's maybe a reflection of why we're not over-anchored on sustainability. America is a big place — a beautiful country — and there are a lot of parts of it where messages about sustainability feel out of touch, or almost like fear-mongering. You can't sense it, you can't see it, you can't really experience climate change if you're just living in the suburbs of Michigan.

SAIF: You know what's interesting, Leo — I'm tempted to call this a win for sustainability. You designed a product that was more sustainable than the alternatives, you thought you'd target a niche in California and New York where Gen Z buyers would pay a premium for it, and then what happened is you went mainstream and ended up selling across the country.

LEO: That's why I call it a sugar pill — you've given people the medicine but coated it in candy. Now everyone's taking the medicine, unwillingly, unknowingly.

SAIF: Exactly. That's actually a really apt metaphor. It's almost like if oat milk becomes really popular because people just like the taste — but it's a win from a sustainability standpoint.

LEO: I hear what you're saying, and I haven't thought about it that way. If we're purely considering whether it's a win from a sustainability standpoint, I guess it is. But one thing it made me think about — if we mapped out say a hundred D2C and retail brands that were born and grew over the last decade, I would be willing to venture that 80% of them have some sort of sustainability nod, checkbox, or intent somewhere in their messaging and product stack.

SAIF: Why do you think that is though, just from pure observation?

LEO: I think it's because it's become table stakes. I don't think the consumer cares more than to know that box is checked — it's not a zero, it's a one, and that's it. I don't want to know how, I don't even want to know if it's valid, because I think some consumers are worried about going down that rabbit hole and discovering it's just greenwashing. And to be honest, as long as you're making and producing something, you are using the environment to some extent. So I definitely think it's complicated, but it's turned more into a table stakes concept.

SAIF: That's really interesting. I have this little theory: sustainability-oriented buyers come in two types. There are the mission-driven zealots, and then there are the guilt-free buyers. The zealots want to know everything about the sustainability credentials they care about — they're the small minority probably writing you nasty Google reviews because your product doesn't do X. The guilt-free buyers just want to know they're not a bad person by buying this thing. They don't really need to know too much else. And the data says that whatever sustainability label you put on a product, it doesn't really matter which one — but if there is some sort of sustainability credential, it'll do a bit better than the product without one. Would you agree?

LEO: I think that's totally right. And let's take something like Whole Foods — there's a range of products from paper towels to ground beef. When I'm looking at the ground beef, I want to know it's USDA organic, pasture-raised and pasture-finished, no antibiotics used. That's the safety side of the sustainability coin. Whereas paper towels — what's the big point of differentiation? Whether it's recycled or not. It's not touching me, it's not going in me. It just needs to absorb water. And so it does have a lot to do with what the product is and what its use is. What we discovered when we interviewed people was that even in New York — our office was in downtown New York at the time — when we'd show ten people a new product packaging design, seven or eight of them communicated not just indifference but a potential weariness about the sustainability messaging. Like, "Is this going to be less soft? Is this going to feel crunchy?" They start attributing negative experiences of sustainability they've had in the past — you just kind of know that the really sustainable dishwasher pod isn't going to work as well.

SAIF: It's like vegan chocolate. Do we really want vegan chocolate?

LEO: You open the dishwasher and there are still little white beads everywhere. Or that eco cleaner — sure, your house doesn't smell like it's just been detoxified. But you're also wondering, is it actually clean? Has it killed as many bacteria as something more frankly toxic and less sustainable would have? And I think that's a big part of it. A lot of Americans are thinking, "Am I getting less for my money? Am I getting something defective?" when it comes to sustainability.

SAIF: Yeah. Most of us hate the idea of single-use plastic packaging, but most of us are happy that our medication comes in single-use plastic packaging, because if it came in cardboard there's a decent chance it doesn't survive as long as we need it to at the performance level we need. You want it to be performant. You want it ideally also to be sustainable, but you really, really want it to be performant.

LEO: Correct. And as a business you want it to be registered. One of the big issues was — we made a comforter, which we still have today, where even the threads and buttons are biodegradable. The fabric is biodegradable, the fill is biodegradable. Ten years after you've bought it and used it to its bare thread, you can just bury it in the backyard and know there's no impact on the planet. But a lot of these details are tricky to message. We went out of our way to develop specific packaging that wasn't just recycled — even the emissions that went into producing the box were lower. It came from a specific factory focused on that, done in partnership with the Forest Stewardship Council. And then our marketing team would go and interview customers and ask: of all these different sustainability parameters — say ten to fifteen of them — which did you pick up? What did you know? One person might have gleaned seven or eight of them. The majority saw two or three. And if it's just two or three things, you're not really that much different from a brand that doesn't care that much about sustainability and is just doing a couple of things to check a box. Then you're wondering: are my cost of goods — which are deeply inflated by these decisions to be extremely conscientious — worth it? And the answer is often no.

SAIF: I think it's really interesting. At the same time, you do see some product categories and brands that have managed to make sustainability a big driver of brand value. I think of Oatly as a classic example, where sustainability is really front and centre in the brand positioning. Do you think it's that certain products lend themselves better to that, or is it about execution, or the markets you target? I suspect Oatly's footprint doesn't map neatly to geographic density — it's probably really concentrated in a few big urban spots like London, New York, LA, San Francisco.

LEO: I was thinking this as you said it — I wonder to what extent our environmental conditions and circumstances pushed us in this direction. I think Oatly was a brand built over a very long time, and was able to find its niches and stack them in a very specific way. Whereas with Buffy, our distribution methods — Bed Bath & Beyond, Meta advertising, Google advertising — those channels demand something more broad-audience-favouring. They force you into the box of: what are the least common denominators, and how would the average person prioritise these purchase criteria? If Oatly were operated the same way we were, I think they would have been forced to focus on flavour more than anything, because that is the most important factor — that's the performance. It has a lot to do with your distribution and your business journey as much as overall market sentiment.

SAIF: I wonder if there's also just something about the founder — the business is in significant part a manifestation of what you want it to be. I wonder whether it was more important to you that Buffy be a mainstream major player in its category than that it be a niche sustainability-oriented brand — which might have ended up being a fifth of the size, more concentrated in a few locations, but much more wearing its sustainability credentials on its sleeve. I think the sugar pill strategy works well from a sustainability angle, so I'm pretty happy with how things worked out as an environmentalist. But I kind of wonder if there's an element of that too.

LEO: Oh, I absolutely think so. I think it's very hard to resist when you have marketing funnels that are working very well that have nothing to do with sustainability. The average person in business is looking at their team, their fixed costs, their investor expectations, and thinking about that trade-off: do we build more patiently, take more financial risk, or do we show results and make sure this thing we're trying to give birth to — which is still very nascent and fragile — is on as healthy a footing as possible? In those early days, the call of financial stability and security was really important to me.

SAIF: And going back to when you started — do you think you assumed that a more sustainable product was a good market niche to build a large business on, or were you personally motivated to create a more sustainable business, or was it simply that this is a better product?

LEO: I think it was a combination of both. At the time, maybe naively given the contents of our conversation, we felt like this was a moment where if IKEA as we know it were extremely sustainable in everything they did, the amount of popularity and consumer willingness to meet them there would be really exciting. That was kind of our initial vision — start with bedding, start with something really comfortable and emotionally powerful, and then expand through the house. There was definitely business tactics and opportunism to it. But I also definitely think the intrinsic sense of wanting sustainability was very much informed by my own firsthand experience going through every dyeing, spinning, weaving, cutting, and sewing mill across India, China, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia, and seeing the waste, the chemistry, and the runoff involved in this industry. And being very familiar with the fast fashion equivalent of usage and wastage from the consumer side. It's very hard for someone in the industry to not be aware of and somewhat sensitive to that.

SAIF: Do you think there's a world where Buffy might actually do really well in Europe with a strong sustainability narrative? It seems like the niche you were looking for that didn't fully materialise in the US might actually be a bigger niche in some of those markets — the Nordics, continental Europe. Could that actually be an opportunity?

LEO: I like the idea of that. With expansion into a new geographical and really cultural market, you get the opportunity to position yourself somewhat differently and to test it. Launching in somewhere like Italy or Japan — where there isn't already an English-speaking culture — affords you that opportunity more than launching in the UK or Australia. However, from a pure business strategy standpoint, the importance of brand consistency is just so critical that half of me is screaming no way. But you could still try to build some marketing funnels in a more tactical way — you wouldn't settle it strategically as "we're a sustainability brand in Europe." But it's definitely an interesting idea.

SAIF: You know, to be honest — I think anchoring on safety actually makes a lot of sense given the nature of your product. A comforter is something you want to wrap yourself up in and feel comfortable and safe. So leaning on that seems like a winning strategy. I always want to end on something a little more like advice for our listeners. My takeaway here would be that sustainability just means different things in different markets. Where you want to land is that sweet spot from a messaging perspective where it really resonates with what your consumers are looking for from a performance perspective — you want to find the performance indicators that can overlap with a sense of values and use that as part of the brand positioning. Would you edit that?

LEO: I think the very simple version of that is: some products are simple enough for sustainability to be a massive differentiator, and some are not. Some products have overwhelming or overriding purchase criteria, and you have to calibrate accordingly.

SAIF: Leo, thank you so much for joining us. Fantastic to have you on the show. We should do this again soon.

LEO: Yeah, I would love to. Thank you for having me.

SAIF: Thanks for listening to this edition of the State of Sustainability podcast. Tap follow or subscribe so you get notified when the next episode comes out. And if you enjoyed the episode, we would really appreciate a review or a five-star rating.

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