Walking into Compendium’s Level Three office is like walking into a cave of licorice all sorts. A riot of colour assaults the eye.
But the colour has meaning – they’re carefully chosen and woven together by fingers of sustainability.
Caitlin, one of the cave’s keepers, starts by putting her hand on a Hydro Flask, rubbing it like a Genie’s lamp: “Like all the products we represent, it is focused on sustainability. High quality, reusable, and long lasting with a lifetime guarantee.”
If you ride the “throw away, plastic wave” then Compendium will make you think again. The single use plastic bottles you now (hopefully) throw in the “recycle” bin are repurposed into Rumpl blankets – each blanket repurposes 60 bottles out of landfill.
And Compendium’s riotous Cotopaxi clothing brand recycles polyester – as well as repurposes off-cut material from bigger production runs giving perfectly functional material new life – ensuring that all materials used are responsibly sourced.
“These bags,” says Caitlin holding up a good-looking hiking pack, “are ethically made by workers who are given creative autonym to pick whatever coloured material they’d like from remnant material. They are unique and one-of-a-kind.”
Compendium is a family-owned business and it proudly distributes these brands across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
“The brands all have sustainability at their core.”