🌍BRiMM is LIVE-ish – be first to sign-up 🥁
Plus a Dishoom Permit Room cocktail, marshmallow laser art and music to wake up to
Welcome to BRiMM, the planet-positive shop, journal and collective here to help you live a lower-impact life, without life feeling less
It’s the week we’ve been waiting for: the one where we get to introduce you to our pre-launch Founder Member site, made especially for you, the hardcore originals who’ve been with us from the beginning. You’re the very first to hear about it and we’d love to know what you think. The founder member spaces are limited and offer a front-row seat to help shape the next stage of our journey.
In this newsletter, we also get to share our own links for a change – to our launch Journal articles: four excellent pieces by four incredibly authoritative and all-round awesome people in the planet-positive world. They cover food, self-care, slow travel and second-hand shopping – a set of articles that together highlight the joys of a planet-positive lifestyle. And we’ll be sharing a new, member-only feature every week, by those who really are in the know. But more on them and their beautiful words in a mo. Firstly, James, our founder, is going to share more about why we’re launching a founder membership.
And ahead of that a little video to invite you join us….
This week’s theme is… BRiMM beginnings
Drumroll please…. Our founder member waitlist is now live.
“Wait… our waitlist?” you might be asking. “Am I not already on it?”
You probably feel like you’ve been waiting long enough. We certainly feel like you have and honestly we really cannot wait to properly kick things off.
But the truth is, before we launch, we need your help.
If we’re really going to kickstart a flywheel of change, as we hope together we can, we need you to bring some friends with you. And here’s why...
Traditionally, when a company like ours sets out to grow, the standard route is to raise money from investors. A lot of that investment is then funnelled into marketing, often on platforms like Meta, lining yucky Mark Zucky’s pockets.
But we’re setting out to rewire how commerce can be a force for good. And felt that how we launch could also be a demonstration of that.
We thought our first external shareholder should be Mother Nature rather than an investor. She’ll have 10% of the business and a seat on our board, represented by Lawyers for Nature and will have a say in important company decisions.
And instead of pouring money into social media giants, we’re inviting you to help us grow – directly and with real impact: we’re committing all of the money we make from the founder membership into supporting the brands we stock, to lower their impact faster.
So every founder membership not only unlocks great personal benefits for you;
£80 annual credit
10% cash back
member only content
free access to member events
for life, but also funds our Planet Fund. Every pound.
It’s people-powered growth, not algorithm-powered noise.
And our members (which hopefully you’ll become) along with Mother Nature will help shape how BRiMM grows and the impact we have.
As founder members you’ll be able to vote, along with our brands, on the initiatives we support – whether that be new renewable energy projects, supply chain or materials innovation or something else that you might suggest.
Beyond this launch moment though we’ll be continuing with a similar model – diverting the margin from the things our members buy. We’re committing a minimum of 10% of revenue to be invested in these initiatives on an ongoing basis.
It’s a revolutionary, people-powered model that can spark real change. We help our members lower their impact and in turn they lower the impact of the brands they shop from. And if it plays out as we hope, the impact should ripple through the industries our brands are in as the innovations we support spread.
We think it’s a new model for building a business – one where every member, and every action, really does make a difference.
Let's see how it goes.
Sustainability (a word we try hard not to use) doesn’t sell, as lots of people are saying (and are telling me) at the moment. Which is a problem – because it needs to. So here at BRiMM we’re reframing it. We came to the realisation early on this journey that people don’t want a trade-off between things that give them joy and have a lower impact. (Just this week Mary Portas called this a Joyconomy.) We’re making it easier and more convenient to live a planet-positive life. One that's good for you, good for your home and good for the planet. And we’re supporting it with a model that means every purchase powers positive change.
We think it’s possible to have an abundant life that regenerates the planet – as well as to have a greater sense of impact with the decisions we make – and we’re inviting you all to join in. Oh and did we say we plan to have fun along the way? Because we’re bringing a great soundtrack and good times.
Ready to live bright and tread light?
Join the waitlist today and remember to bring some friends. Everything you and they contribute will add to our planet fund and we’ll give you both a discount for getting in early.
James 🌍 💚
p.s. what’s the song that lights you up and the story behind it? Share the track and artist and we’ll collate one mother of a playlist.
The BRiMM Life Questionnaire
This week it’s the turn of BRiMM founder member Jacques Cockell, the man behind Zing: a UK-made, 100% recyclable, cruelty-free toothpaste that really does whiten your teeth (we can vouch for that), and which will be included in one of our upcoming Reset Boxes
Favourite walking route
”Somewhere new.”
Causes you give to every month
”We’re in the process of launching a limited-edition toothpaste tube that will be sold to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust. I lost a childhood friend to leukemia when he was in his early twenties. Given we’ve got a product that exists to make people smile, it feels right that we should use it to do good.”
Quote to live by and who said it
“‘Some people care too much. I think it's called love.’ (Winnie the Pooh).”
What gets you every time
”Live music.”
What is love
”See above.”
Watch out for the rest of Jacques’ answers on our site soon
Fancy doing our BRiMM Life Questionnaire yourself? Get in touch
FROM THE COLLECTIVE
Tiff’s psyched that Andy Cato of Wildfarmed and many other interesting folk are now on the lineup for #WellRead Wasing Literary Fest, 24-26 May – including Tiff herself in fact, who you can catch on a panel
James is super curious about the new work from guerilla art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast, showing at Kew Gardens this summer (who wouldn’t be?)
Mark flagged that B Corp Fest is t’up near him this year, on a farm in Lancs
We love to hear what our collective is finding. Share your links with Becky
THE POWER OF WHAT WE EAT: HOW A NEW FOOD SYSTEM CAN HEAL US AND THE PLANET
Tweaking a handful of diet and drink choices throughout our day-to-days is just about the most impactful thing we can do to improve both our own health and that of our global home. Environmental expert, author and consultant Mark Shayler has worked in planet positivity for 35 years, saving his clients over $200 million annually and a shed-load of carbon. He’s also the right man to explain exactly what sort of changes we need to make to what’s currently in our fridges and on our plates to make a real difference.
LESS BUT MORE: HOW AND WHY IT’S TIME TO TAKE A DIFFERENT APPROACH TO BEAUTY
In a world obsessed with glowing looks and strict routines, have we fallen into the trap of product overconsumption? Could we actually feel and look better, while doing less harm to the environment, if we just used fewer, better things? Lisa Oxenham very much believes so. She’s spent 25 years working in beauty – most recently as beauty and style director at Marie Claire and now as an ongoing advisor to boards including the British Beauty Council’s Sustainable Beauty Coalition. She is also an ambassador for the Soil Association certification and the Amazon Research Institute – and, in short, very much a woman worth listening to when it comes to looking after yourself (and the planet).
→ SEE MORE
TRAVEL THROUGH A NEWS LENS: HOW SLOW TRAVEL IS BOOSTING CULTURE WORLDWIDE
By now we all know that holidaying by train, boat, bus or bicycle causes less damage to our planet than flying. But perhaps what we didn’t see coming were all the added bonuses of taking these lower-impact forms of transport… Monisha Rajesh, author of Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train has taken a whole load of train journeys for her books Around the World in 80 Trains and Around India in 80 Trains, and probably knows more about holidays via train than anyone else today. This is her take on the subtle advantages and knock-on effects of travelling at a more relaxed pace.
→ ESCAPE MORE
THE ENDLESS INDIVIDUALITY MADE POSSIBLE BY SECOND-HAND SHOPPING
Fashion editor and writer turned planet-positive activist, author and all-round changemaker Tiffanie Darke shares why and how to make the revitalising shift to thrift. Packed with expert tips on how to find your personal style from others who’ve made the move from high fashion into the second-hand sphere, you’ll find yourself inspired to shop in a more conscious – and way more fun – way.
PERMISSION TO DRINK
To celebrate the opening of Dishoom’s new 1970s Bombay-themed off-shoot, Permit Room, plus our own first-stage launch, we’re sharing their recipe for a Prohibition-style mango lassi punch cocktail. Bottoms up!
MUSIC FOR BIG RE-BEGINNINGS
“Four times a year I share music that has soundtracked my earth positive strategy studio Peace Cabin, revealing the rhythms that have inspired,” explains the architect behind BRiMM’s brand and marketing strategy, Matt. “The latest, shared at Easter, is #07: A Springtime Reawakening. It travels 3 hours through dust-kicked folk meditations, rolling breaks and jazz explorations – before finally arriving at the stunning beauty of rolling dunes.”
The carbon footprint of an email depends what device you use to open it, but sending you this one used about 3.5g of carbon.
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