BACE Blog

Featured guru :: Beth Doane, Andira International

September 6, 2010 by Mel Lim | bace, featured gurus | 0 Comments

Featured guru :: Beth Doane, Andira International
Expertise: Green Consulting/ Sustainability

1) Tell us what you do?
I grew up on a small farm in Ohio and after graduating from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in communication and theatre, I realized I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I looked into a few jobs across the United States and eventually moved to Europe and lived in cities like London, Paris and Madrid.

Living in Europe led to my idea of creating an import and distribution company focused on bringing high end European fashion to the US market. I called my company Andira. After seeing how “fast fashion” could be so harmful to garment workers, farmers, our health, and the health of our environment, I decided to create a signature eco-conscious brand of my own. The brand is called Rain Tees and it’s a 100% organic line of apparel for women and children that feature designs by youth living in endangered rain forests.

We donate school supplies to the children and ask them to illustrate what they see happening in their world every day. Each Rain Tee features their thoughts, illustrations and names. For every item sold, a child involved in the non-profit Kids Saving the Rain Forest receives a tree they can plant to replace one that has been destroyed.

After Rain Tees launched I started receiving frequent questions on how other designers could become more eco conscious and launch similar brands or take their companies in a more sustainable direction. These questions led to my consulting firm, which I created to be a branch of my original import company, Andira, and it’s focused on sustainability in production, sourcing, branding, launches and high end eco events.

2) What makes your company unique and different in your industry?
I designed my companies to educate and inspire through multiple industries so that we reach millions of people. Being focused on sustainability above all makes us different. We use recycled toilet paper rolls and I cook vegan lunches for my super tiny staff and interns which we hear is not the norm. Also, when I am not working from LA or NY, I work from my parents little farm in Ohio. I always wonder if clients will wonder why there are sheep noises in the background. It’s definitely not your average office!

3) Tell us about your trip to the Amazon. Did you achieve the goals you set out to accomplish?
Yes the trip was incredible and also successful. We were there to deliver art supplies to children in tribal villages and do art sessions with them.

We were also able to live briefly with The Achuar – an Amazonian community of around 6,500 that live near the borders of Southeast Ecuador and Peru. Like most Achuar communities, the village we stayed in was nestled near a tributary to the Amazon and had a dirt airstrip running through it that had been built by hand after contact with the outside world began in the 1970’s.

The Achuar of Ecuador have managed to strongly protect their land from oil excavation, while sadly the Achuar in Peru have not. We saw horrible illegal oil spills and mass contamination created by oil excavation in the jungles deep in Ecuador while delivering school supplies to another tribe called the Cofan. We were able to document their stories and are working on a film to share those stories with the world.

4) How do you tell if a company is truly dedicated to sustainability or if they are greenwashing?
Whatever the product may be the thing to always remember is that the ingredients don’t lie. This is what you really have to focus on. You have to know what ingredients are safe or toxic and that’s an education within itself – but not as hard as you may think.

If a company is truly green you will see 100% certified organic or the European equivalent, or other keys to look for are short ingredient lists if it’s a food item and words you can pronounce or easily recognize. There are books and websites out there entirely dedicated to label reading. So the best thing to do is to start there and learn what’s safe and what’s not. Just because things are FDA regulated, it does not mean they are 100% safe for us! The entire cosmetics and skincare industries remain unregulated altogether as well.

5) Did you have any mentors? If you did, who were they? What were their advices to you?
I think I had people in life that inspired me more than I had people who mentored me.

6) Name top 3 entrepreneurs/leaders/designers that you admire the most and why.
I have so many people I admire and whose work I love. What I am always inspired by though is how many amazing people succeed despite odds against them.

Walt Disney dropped out of high school at age 16 and Frank Lloyd Wright, widely accepted as the most influential architect of the twentieth century, never even attended high school to begin with.

I love people who remind us everyday that anything is possible and it’s not really about where you come from but about where you want to go and how passionate you are about getting there.

One of my personal heroes is a man named Pablo Fajardo who is fighting the legal battle against Chevron for dumping oil on indigenous land in what has become the largest environmental court case in history. I wrote a blog about him.

7) What is the difference between good and great design?
Good design shows talent. Great design shows passion and perhaps stirs something deep within us.

8) How do you define a good leader?
Compassionate. Honest. Inspiring. Brilliant and one who practices “ahimsa” which is a Sanskrit word that means to do no harm. Ghandi comes to mind.

9) What makes you happy?
Beaches, working with animals, being surrounded by my wonderful family and incredible friends, writing, yoga, Italy in the summer and falling asleep to the sounds of the jungle!

10) Can you tell us, what you are working on next?
A men’s line. We get asked all the time to design for men so that is our next step.