The richest person on the planet, Jeff Bezos, started a platform marketplace and built an empire. There’s no denying that online shopping has changed the way the world buys and sells online, and in 2020, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 4.28 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 5.4 trillion US dollars in 2022. We were excited to sit down with Joe Darwin, the Founder and CEO of Veo.World, the online sustainable marketplace. Veo.World is the destination for conscious consumers, and a home for unique independent brands who create high-quality sustainable products.
Tell us a little bit about you and your background:
I’m the Founder and CEO of Veo.World – the sustainable marketplace. Veo is the destination for conscious consumers, and a home for unique independent brands who create high-quality sustainable products. Discover unique statement brands in Fashion, Beauty, Food, Home: sustainable lifestyle luxury. We believe in quality & sustainability; that they are intrinsically linked and one cannot exist without the other. So we can guarantee you’ll never have to compromise in your choices of style, taste, or lifestyle. the good stuff, no compromise™. It started when I was working at the UK Government’s Department for International Trade (DIT formerly UKTI) delivering the ‘Ecommerce Export’ programme.
For this programme, I worked in partnership with over 40 of the world’s leading marketplaces (including Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc.), and working with these leading global platforms it became evident that very few seemed to consider the ‘Real Bottom Line’. Or sometimes called the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), for Profit + People + Planet. This is a business framework that commits to focusing as much on social and environmental concerns as it does on profits. So in finding that none of the world-leading marketplaces seemed to support these values, I founded Veo as a vital future-facing alternative to other platforms that fall short of these ideals.
What is a fun fact about you?
In my early twenties I was a music producer and wrote a song that Drake recorded. @champagnepapi
Why do you think climate change and sustainability is such an important topic today?
We’re increasingly seeing the impacts of industry and more and more realizing that there are myriad different and more efficient earth-friendly ways that we can manufacture things, better use of resources, in a regenerative model and create a circular closed-loop low impact economy.
What do you envision your industry looking like 10 years from now?
It will be a standard for businesses to conduct and operate in such a way that considers the ‘Real Bottom Line’. The Triple Bottom Line (TBL), for Profit + People + Planet. Consumers will require businesses to have these models in place, and a framework that commits to focusing as much on social and environmental concerns as it does on profits.
What can the average person do to make a difference?
Use our consumer power to spend our money only in places which supports our positive impact view of the world. We can adopt practices in our everyday life which finds new and sustainable alternatives to everything we do. From what we eat to what we wear, what we use. Eating more plant-based is a huge way to help the planet, and also has health benefits and allows us to support local growers and organic farms and agriculture. We can also use our voice to spread awareness about the benefits of adopting a sustainable lifestyle, and put pressure on companies, business, heads of state and government to create policies that support a greener cleaner future.