Anvitha Prashanth started her Bangalore based lifestyle brand Go Native with one major motive in mind, to go back to the roots. Go Native is the one-stop shop for everything mindfully crafted, from grain to seed to thread. Its offerings for personal care include soaps, perfumes, skincare, and haircare products made with natural ingredients. All of its home decor products are handcrafted by weavers from sustainable and eco-friendly materials.
Go Native also has a restaurant. In its restaurant, the dishes are made with ingredients sourced locally. “When we say locally, we mean within 500 kms radius of each outlet. So even though our dishes are innovative with a twist, our ingredients are all traditionally grown in the same soil, local to the area,” she shares.
Anvitha wished to promote domestic and local sourcing once more in the retail sector. She also wants to support traditional artisanal communities who have been developing their skills for decades. For instance, Go Native’s wardrobe category sources all of its fabrics directly from handloom weavers throughout the nation, including its handcrafted jewellery and bags. Similar to how its food and personal care products are acquired locally from like-minded companies, they are made with natural ingredients from age-old recipes and don’t include any chemicals or pesticides.
Anvitha adds, “When we say “sustainable”, we go the extra mile to make sure everything is made by hand and our artisans are fairly rewarded.” She continues, “The phrase “Go Native” encapsulates what we are attempting to achieve in this area.”
The top priority is sustainability
Sustainability is a top priority at Go Native. Nearly 70% of the vegetables and 75% of the cereals, spices, and pulses used in its restaurant are organic and come from farms within a 500 km radius.
The team ensures that the activities and products have no harmful effects on the environment. Everything is extracted organically without the use of chemicals or pesticides, using biodegradable and environmentally friendly material to reduce the carbon impact, and the brand does not use plastic packaging.
Its restaurant and stores are built from refurbished old homes, utilising all natural materials. Additionally, its locations in Jayanagar and HSR have implemented over 40% usage of solar panels.
Overall, the company is mindful of the materials it uses for building, furniture, daily operations, products, and dishes, and it takes care to dispose of waste properly.
According to the founder, sustainability is a journey that requires ongoing effort and commitment. It is a process of ongoing improvement rather than something that can be accomplished immediately. In order to lessen its influence on the environment and to encourage sustainable living, Go Native continuously reviews and improves its operations. The company’s staff is continually looking for methods to lower carbon footprint, save resources, and encourage sustainable practices in our operations because we think that tiny adjustments may have a huge impact.
In Anvitha’s words, “We encourage our employees, customers and suppliers to join us in this journey and together we can make a positive impact on the environment.”
The challenges
The price point was an important factor in Anvitha’s Go Native journey. “When one is trying to make an environmentally right decision, it is not going to be cheap”, she says.
For instance, below a specific point, natural fabric cannot be purchased. Below a certain price point, reasonable salaries cannot be obtained. To really broaden our effect, we need to change the way we think about consuming. It is not necessary to purchase ten goods each costing 1000 INR in order to make it inexpensive. Instead, one may purchase two durable items for 4,000 or 5,000 Indian rupees.
“I understand that this caters to a very niche population, who are able to buy from fast fashion brands, the first hundred million of India. Even within this segment, everyone has a responsibility to change the way they are thinking about consumption,” she explains.
She claims that it is not about purchasing in bulk and then throwing it away. Making sure each purchase is valued requires pinching your wallet just enough to make you stop and consider it. It is not about making impulse purchases. You desire possessions that you will value and adore for a very long time.
The transparency surrounding what is sustainable and how? was another problem she encountered in this area. She always advises people to research a product’s sustainability before purchasing it. To start, look into the fabric the garment is made of, the price the weaver or artisan received for creating the dress, the carbon footprint of the item, and so on. It is quite simple for many firms to label anything as “sustainable,” and if the price is low, it is very alluring for us to think that it is genuinely environmentally beneficial. However, it is crucial to comprehend the underlying meaning of sustainability and to pose questions about it.
“For us, when we say “sustainable”, we mean it is handwoven – every single saree is made by hand and every weaver is compensated fairly. Every dress we have is either handloom or stitched from organic cotton – we want to impact one level of the supply chain, either at the farmer or at the weaver level. All of our apparel is produced in house. We have a team of tailors who make the apparel we sell,” shares Anvitha.
Go Native is plastic-free for food and personal care. Single-use plastics are no longer used for body wash, pickles, coffee, or other products. The direct-from-farmer approach makes it possible for all of its food to travel without plastic. Even natural items like coconut sugar and honey have lower carbon footprints than white sugar and jaggery, respectively. Anvitha and her team take this into account. Natural is exactly what it says it is, credentials included.
The ceramics used in its home decor goods are supplied from regional potters and pottery workshops; its stationery line uses recycled materials; the toxin-free puja basics; and so on.
Go Native is the one-stop shop for everything mindfully crafted, from grain to seed to thread. Its goods for personal care include soaps, perfumes, and skincare, haircare, all made with natural ingredients. All of its home decor is handcrafted by weavers from sustainable and eco-friendly materials, making it kind to both you and the environment.
“Everything that requires the use of hands isn’t handcrafted. We only say handcrafted, when we truly mean it, especially for our range of apparel that’s exclusively woven on handlooms, or, our jewellery that is meticulously shaped by pure skill honed over decades, or, our woven grass accessories that involve days of non-mechanised processing and intricate weaving,” Anvitha explains.
Go Native is always looking for ways to develop and broaden the business. In the foreseeable future, one of its main priorities will be to improve its internet visibility while simultaneously growing our physical locations throughout southern India. Anvitha thinks that doing this will help them reach more people and provide better service to their consumers. The brand currently has 5 locations in Bangalore where it operates, and is also actively looking into opening new locations in places like Chennai and Hyderabad.
“We believe that this expansion will help us to achieve our goal of making sustainable and locally sourced products more accessible to people in the region,” she sums up.
Read More: A record number of people worldwide participate in Veganuary 2023
Good to read.
that’s the way our the way traditionally Indians went