‘The soda market needs a shove’: Lo Bros taking on its own industry with ambitious eco-promise

Drinks maverick Lo Bros has vowed to disrupt its own industry and purge the ocean of 2 million plastic water bottles using its non-soda soda line, as a new wave of eco-warrior brand promises from the likes of Patagonia and Zero Co combine saving the world with boosting the bottom line.

Lo Bros, founded by Melburian Didi Lo in 2016, seeks to upend everything consumers expect from a soft drink with the company’s latest offering, Not Soda. It’s a traditional recipe in fruity flavours that has no sugar and no artificial sweeteners.

The drinks brand will sweeten the deal with a new campaign that vows to remove the equivalent weight of two plastic bottles worth of plastic from marine environments — which could take the form of straws or fishing lines — for every Not Soda can sold.

It’s a tall order. Every year, up to 34 billion plastic bottles end up in the ocean, choking marine life and polluting key waterways, so Lo Bros has partnered with independent retailers Ritchies and Drakes, as well as Seven Clean Seas to bolster efforts and make the cleanup a reality.

Lo Bros’ Not Soda, lemon flavour. Source: Supplied.

Indonesian-based Seven Clean Seas, which works on cleanup programs all over the world, says Lo Bros’ plastic removal crusade will start on Batam Island, with plans to expand further afield.

Drakes general manager of merchandise and marketing Michael Connolly says Australian businesses must galvanise to find solutions for damaging plastic waste pilling up off our coastlines and beyond.

“As leaders in the retail industry, we have a responsibility to be a part of the change for good, and this is a soda our consumers can feel good about,” Connolly said.

“It’s not only zero sugar, but it contributes to saving our seas at a time when climate change is a global emergency.”

Seven Clean Seas co-founder Tom Peacock-Nazil says a partnership with Lo Bros will “generate tons of positive environmental and social impact whilst giving the existing soda market the disruptive shove it needs in the right direction”.

“Not only is the product designed for recyclability and true circularity given today’s infrastructure, but some of its profit is allocated to cleaning plastic pollution from our oceans.”

Lo Bros is owned by SoulFresh, a health foods and drinks company that sells in major grocery stores in Australia and NZ, and the likes of Wholefoods and Sainsbury’s in the UK.

To put its money where its mouth is, Lo Bros is removing plastic from its entire product line and operations too, partnering with Plastic Collective, a global leader in circular economies for plastic to purge itself of the damaging product.

Eco-warrior private sector

It’s the latest in a growing group of conscious capitalist businesses vowing to use consumer buying power to solve the looming climate crisis, as the innovative private sector races ahead of government policy.

Sustainable cleaning and body care brand Zero Co, SmartCompany’s Smart50 Rising Star winner for 2022, has stopped more than 1.6 million water bottles worth of plastic from being made since the startup launched in 2020.

Founder Mike Smith has also delivered 18 major ocean and beach clean-up initiatives in Australia in the last 24 months, pulling a staggering 1.2 million water bottles worth of rubbish from the ocean.

“We went to places like North Korea, Kamchatka, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and I was constantly left deeply disconcerted at finding our planet’s most beautiful and remote landscapes covered in plastic,” Smith recalled.

And saving the world makes good business sense too — Zero Co is on track to see $20 million in headline sales, representing 23,000% growth since its launch.

In September, Patagonia founder, long-term environmentalist and “reluctant billionaire” Yvon Chouinard announced he’d be giving away his $3 billion company in an audacious bid to tackle climate change.

Chouinard says Patagonia’s non-voting stock will go to a collective that will skim every dollar of profit off the top of the business operations to invest in projects and organisations that protect land and biodiversity.

“We needed to find a way to put more money into fighting the crisis while keeping the company’s values intact,” he wrote.

Plastic rule change

It comes as NSW officially banned a slew of single-use plastic items earlier this month, including plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery, plates, bowls, cotton buds, food ware and cups made from expanded polystyrene, and rinse-off personal care products containing plastic microbeads.

It follows a single-use plastic bag ban in June.

Single-use plastic items and packaging account for 60% of all litter in NSW, and the single-use plastic bans will prevent almost 2.7 billion items of plastic litter from entering the environment in the next 20 years.

“Today, we’re delivering long-term change by banning some of the most-littered single-use plastic items, including plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery, plates, bowls and cotton buds,” Minister for Environment James Griffin said.

“The feedback is clear — the community is disturbed by the amount of single-use plastic entering our environment, so we’ve listened, taken action, and today we’re asking everyone across the state to stop it and swap it.”

Since February, the National Retail Association, on behalf of the NSW government, has been providing education and support to more than 40,000 businesses and community organisations around implementing the changes.

The Perrottet government has also partnered with Great Plastic Rescue to collect excess stock from wholesalers, distributors, retailers, businesses and not-for-profits for recycling and remanufacturing into new items.