Razer invests in green Bambooloo toilet paper

Bambooloo has a very clever name. In fact, it’s not bad at all for a company that makes toilet paper from renewable resources like bamboo that you can use in the toilet.

Perhaps that clever name is why Razer recently said it was investing in The Nurturing Co., maker of Bambooloo, one of the world’s first brands of plastic-free disposable toilet paper and bamboo home care products. That’s what you get when you start with a blank sheet of paper.

“We use toilet humor and break the taboo that a lot of people don’t like to talk about, and that’s something we all do every day,” David Ward, CEO of The Nurturing Co., said in an interview with GamesBeat. “From an environmental sustainability perspective, there are some really cool things to say.”

Now the company is making investments from its $50 million fund to support and invest in environmental and sustainability startups. The Razer Green Fund will be managed by zVentures, Razer’s corporate ventures arm, and will be part of Razer’s strategic investment activities.

Bambooloo’s origins

The company was founded three years ago, although Ward has been focused on the sustainable brand space for about eight years. He remembers well that almost nobody was interested in sustainability or plastic in the sea. “We came together as a group of people to try not only to create sustainable products, but also to reduce the plastic in all packaging,” Ward said. “We started with a clean sheet of paper to really see what we could do to design that much, if not all, of the plastic out of the product.” The company found that toilet paper brands use a lot Plastic, not only in the packaging but also in the product itself.

Pandemic TP Demand

Then came the 2020 pandemic and everyone wanted toilet paper. I remember going to Costco the weekend of the first lockdowns and the toilet paper was gone. “We saw an increase in demand and a change in the way people were responding to us,” Ward said. “Toilet paper was a normal part of conversations in cabs or Lyfts. And I would say: “I make sustainable toilet paper. We were sold out like many other brands. It turned this basic item into something pretty important. We turned a bit of a psychological corner.”

Bamboo pulp has proven to be a sustainable choice for toilet paper. In addition to its speed of growth, bamboo pulp requires 90% less water and 70% less carbon to produce compared to wood pulp. By switching to bamboo toilet paper, a family of four can save over 30,000 liters of water in a year, Ward said.

“I was shocked that nobody had done what we suggested,” Ward said. “We are bringing to the consumer what we believe is a very compelling product that will hold up very well against the established brands in the United States.”

At the start of 2021, Ward saw Razer building a new office in Singapore with a sustainable focus. So he sent a message to Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan to have a supplier meeting. Tan responded as if he really liked what The Nurturing Co. was doing. So Ward provided a product for testing and the relationship began with that. The idea of ​​investing soon came up. Ward didn’t know much about Razer, but his co-founder was passionate about it as a gamer. And Razer has invested.

To kick off its new Green Fund initiative, Razer has completed a seed investment in The Nurturing Co. through zVentures. Bambooloo supplies bamboo toilet paper to some of Razer’s global offices, including the new soon-to-open Southeast Asia headquarters and Malaysia office, as part of Razer’s Green Organization plan to ensure all Razer office operations are 100% carbon neutral are.

Razer’s green focus

Back in March 2021, Razer, a gaming lifestyle products company, unveiled its 10-year sustainability roadmap as part of its #GoGreenWithRazer initiative, which outlined four key areas of Razer’s commitment to preserving nature and protecting the environment , including using 100% renewable energy by 2025 and achieving 100% carbon neutrality by 2030.

As part of this 10-year plan, Razer also announced several Green Community vertical initiatives to educate and rally gamers worldwide to contribute to green causes. These include the Sneki Snek campaign in partnership with Conservation International to protect one million trees and the limited edition Kanagawa Wave apparel collection made from reclaimed marine plastics.

The Razer Green Fund, falling under the green investing industry, will seek to foster green thinking in the Razer community of youth, millennials and Gen Z through select strategic investments. These investments aim to accelerate sustainability businesses focused on renewable energy, carbon and plastic management.

beating of pulp

It’s all an ambitious dream for Ward, who has spent 25 years in the fashion industry and is a descendant of Roman gypsies raised on sustainable vegetable gardens. And his goal is to touch a billion lives in 10 years.

Ward noted that regular toilet paper is made from pulp from trees that take about 25 years to grow. Each tree produces about 1,500 rolls of toilet paper. But once you cut down the tree, it’s dead. The tree needs prime farmland to grow, and it only produces its maximum oxygen output for a quarter of its life, which is good for the environment, Ward said. During this lifetime, it consumes a large amount of carbon and water.

Most toilet paper is wrapped in plastic, and the paper itself is often mixed with allergenic materials. And wipes are often made up of up to 65% plastic.

In contrast, a bamboo tree takes about three weeks to grow, and a few weeks after harvest it’s back up like grass. In 25 years, the bamboo can produce five or six times the amount of raw materials and produce about 35% more oxygen. It does not require much arable land and can grow on eroded landscapes or mountainsides much like a grass.

Bamboo is also hypoallergenic, making it less irritating to the skin.

“If you’re itchy, the toilet paper we use has traces of chemicals in it, and nine times out of ten we’re irritated by it,” he said. “Consumers have rallied to say, ‘Enough.’ We will try to find solutions that work with brands that remove things like this.”

And it uses about 90% less water, Ward said.

make a dent

I asked Ward how big the disruption could be in the toilet paper industry.

“You obviously have to start somewhere. And in a way, it’s the same with the entire pulp industry. There’s probably something in the order of 50 or so brands in the world doing what we do in bamboo. But we’re dealing with giants in a $380 billion sector,” he said. “It’s run by giant corporations that have avoided telling you anything for as long as possible.”

Ward said there is good scientific work emphasizing the value of bamboo over wood pulp. But he conceded: “Moving that needle isn’t going to be easy. As an alternative fiber, bamboo is the top choice to replace wood pulp. But it’s not going to happen tomorrow to the extent we’re talking about. But it’s a very interesting area for companies like us that started with a blank sheet of paper.”

This goal offers many advantages.

“We have a sustainable material product that gives the consumer just as good, if not better, results,” Ward said. “It’s not affecting the Earth like the material before it. And it is also designed to have no social and environmental impact in terms of packaging after use. So it is a combination of points that leads to a greater difference from the traditional product.”