D2C brands and sustainability — 3 cases from Germany, Austria and Switzerland

3 innovation and digital news in 1 minute. Every Monday. Episode 287

News 1. Waterdrop — microdrinks to replace plastic bottles

Founded 2016 in Vienna, Waterdrop is now one of the shooting stars of the Austrain startup scene. They sell flavoured, sugar-free cubes called “microdrinks”, that dissolve in water. Around 90% of revenues come through their website, flagship stores and business customer relationships. This January they collected €60 million funding from investors. Waterdrop’s smart bottle cap cleans water and tracks consumption. Opinion: Waterdrop makes sure that for each package sold, 1 plastic bottle is collected from the environment. They aim to bring change in the beverage market trying to replace bottled beverages with refillable solutions to save plastic, transport emissions and overall cost.

Dissolvable cubes have been around forever. Microdrinks bring it to the next level. A sustainable alternative to bottled sodas.

News 2. Nikin — 1 T-shirt = 1 tree

Founded 2016 in Lenzburg (CH), Nikin is one of the first fashion companies to plant a tree for every product sold. The promise of planting trees turned out to be very attractive to consumers and is one of the main reasons for the company’s success. The startup leads the LinkedIn Top Startups 2021 Switzerland and management team is part of the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. By now, the company has planted over 1.5 million trees. Recently the company has launched a “FactoryTracker” where customers can track producers and origin of every Nikin product. Opinion: Nikin shows that the continuingly growing trend of sustainability can offer great opportunities for companies to differentiate themselves and attract customers at scale. Nikin is doing this in a credible way all along the entire supply chain.

Authenticly sustainable company showing its uniqueness also on their very original TikTok channel. Way to go!

News 3. KoRo — transparency as a core value

Founded in 2012 in Berlin, KoRo encorporates the typical D2C (direct-to-consumer) model: buy food from producers in bulk and sell it directly to the end customer — bypassing middlemen to ensure high value for money. With many vegan options, bulk packaging and fair supplier relationships, KoRo contributes to sustainability. The company is quite active also currently expanding into many new areas such as catering, franchising and publishing. Opinion: Transparency is KoRo’s core value, clearly stating that sustanabilty is important but not no.1 goal. They openly communicate tradeoffs between organic and local vs. variety, taste, price and food safety. Thus, the company shows its contributions to sustainability while also being open about its limitations.

Lots of initiatives around KoRo at the moment with a sustainability model that is both pragmatic and authentic.

Author is the research team (10 trend scouters) at specialist Space and Lemon Innovations (Hamburg, Berlin) — scouting innovations in main tech geographies, AI development, virtual worlds and e-commerce. Excerpts of research are gathered here in original weekly news since 2016, always with an opinion — no re-write of TechCrunch.

Come back next Monday and share your opinion.