Self-Care That Cares
Interview with Erika Aldrich Founder of Temazcal Life
For Temazcal Life, sustainability isn’t just a nice idea—it’s the heart of everything they do. Erika, the founder, believes in taking care of ourselves, people, and the planet, inspired by her Latine heritage and the wisdom of her ancestors who lived in harmony with nature.
In this interview, we learn why sustainability matters so much for Temazcal Life, the creative ways the brand is making a positive impact, and the challenges they face along the way. From eco-friendly packaging to ethical sourcing, Erika shares how even small businesses can help lower the impact on the environment, for a more balanced world for everyone.
One of your brand pillars is sustainability. Why is it important for your brand to put that at the forefront of its communications?
The vision of Temazcal Life is a world where we approach well-being holistically, which means we care for each other and the environment we inhabit, and we care for the different facets and aspects of our lives. This vision came to be through the wisdom passed on to me through my Latine heritage, lessons passed on for generations from our ancestors who sought well-being by balancing their communities and individual presence within their habitat and by extending respect and dignity to all beings around them.
It may sound oversimplified, but it's an essential point of view that I'm promoting through the brand identity and communications. It speaks directly to environmental and social sustainability and our responsibility to extend respect, reverence, and dignity to everything around us, primarily through economic activities like a business, no matter how small.
Economic activity has devastated the globe and put us at an inflection point. If the industries conducting those economic activities do not take responsibility and manage their environmental and social impact, individual citizen efforts will fall short. In that context, it became very clear to me that no matter how small my business was, it had to be accountable for its impact. I sought to implement practices that allowed me to contribute positively to environmental and social impact.
What are some of the practices you’ve implemented to be a sustainable brand?
I harness my expertise and background in experience and service design to design sustainable operations and consider the products' full lifecycle, leading me to make environmentally and socially responsible decisions. Product and operation design is my core practice; this is represented in several ways. For example:
I've designed products whose packaging is easy to dispose of even when curbside composting or recycling is not viable. Reducing the plastic I put in consumers' hands is essential to reducing the environmental and social justice issues caused by tons of plastic pollution, which disproportionately impacts BIPOC, rural, and low-income communities.
I spend a lot of time thinking about developing products with lightweight materials and packaging. Contributing to reducing carbon emissions is crucial to addressing climate justice issues, and products that weigh less reduce carbon emissions from delivery vehicles.
I avoid materials like palm oil that adversely impact the environment and the communities that source them. Although palm oil is pervasive in natural soap production, it leads to deforestation and native land grabs disguised as economic opportunity.
What are some of the main challenges you’ve faced as a business owner who prioritizes sustainability?
Finding providers that offer sustainable solutions has been a nightmare. In part, I'm not an expert in the supply chain, but I've also seen the market inundated with incumbents that offer cheap solutions devoid of environmental or labor considerations.
Once I've found a vendor that offers sustainable products or solutions, it comes with a high price tag, translating into higher costs to make my products. It may be less of a challenge if I were in this business only to make "luxe" products. However, I'm in this business to make personal care accessible for people's well-being and provide them with sustainable rituals that lead to less consumption. This value exchange is complex for customers to rationalize, and they need to learn more about it through communication.
The previous point about accessibility and consumption leads me to the third challenge: communicating and educating about both topics. It's a challenge to cut through the noisy content from companies using greenwashed communications to "generate value for shareholders.
What are some tips you can share with business owners who are looking to be more sustainable?
My main tip is to think critically through the inputs and outputs in the business, from the materials/resources to make a product/service all the way through the end of the life of that product or service. Here's an example of considerations for making responsible decisions about products and operations:
Where do these materials come from, and under which conditions were they produced?
Can I or my customers afford slightly better quality? If not,
Where can I reduce costs in my operations to cover the cost of better-quality materials and pass the savings on to my customers?
How are my customers going to use and dispose of this?
How can I design it to reduce their effort to dispose of it responsibly?
Is everyone involved in these activities receiving dignified treatment and compensation? Including me, the business owner.
I will conclude by elaborating on the last point and the untenability of valuing productivity over communal care. As a solo entrepreneur, neglecting our well-being to pursue a goal can come easy, especially when our culture prioritizes productivity, achievement, and capitalizing on our endeavors. A sustainable business starts with not overextending ourselves but pursuing a goal dignifiedly, allowing for balance and acting compassionately toward ourselves and our surroundings. In the measure we invest in ourselves, we can expand that care to the well-being of our immediate communities and work together for the much-needed equity to restore many with a dignified living.