Scrolling through the Aim2Flourish website, I saw the emergence of the different solutions implemented by businesses, reflecting the variety of solutions people enact in pursuit of the Sustainability Development Goals. The businesses featured in this website “celebrate business innovations for global good,” thus becoming a placeholder for achievements and inspirations for future business leaders.
As a part of my Sustainability Management (ACMSUST) class requirement, I was given the unexpected opportunity to contribute to the body of knowledge on this website. Although intimidating at first, I was fueled with excitement to see which direction to head towards and which company our group would choose to feature.
Hence, we searched from the list of our contacts. As many businesses emerged at the height of the pandemic, we scouted our contacts who had many unique innovations integrated into their business model. From these back-and-forth conversations with my groupmates, we finally settled on an enterprise established by the sibling of one of my very own groupmates.
Aunt Flo Beauty provides sustainable menstrual product alternatives (i.e., Menstrual Cups and Reusable Menstrual Pads) to empower women’s flows. The company was founded by a sustainability advocate, Erika Ang, in 2019. Although this product was seen in the international market, the Philippines was not up to date with these innovations.
Erika became the first mover, and Aunt Flo Beauty became one of the biggest brands to sell such products across the country. However, what the company offered to the market was not only their sustainable products but also a message for a community they’ve consequently built.
Looking at their Facebook Page, you can already tell that their posts do not solely focus on their product offerings, but also on empowering Filipino mothers and young women. Talking about menstruation is still quite a taboo in the country, but Aunt Flo’s presence makes women more comfortable in their bodies as they come to even the owner for advice.
We scheduled an interview with her to learn more about the background and the inspiration behind her brand. In our 30-minute conversation, I saw how she has grown into a sustainable business entrepreneur. Looking beyond just the profit, Erika looks for ways to integrate more ways to be sustainable while serving her customers. And after three years of operations, she still has loyal customers who openly vlog about her products.
The impact that she created moved the hearts of many and, of course, helped people save the Earth by reducing the disposable menstrual pads. The small conscious choices escalate to making a more significant mark than any individual can hope to imagine. And through inspirational figures like Erika, we wrote our Aim2Flourish article to have more women and future business leaders inspired by her path.
Visit our Aim2Flourish site, https://aim2flourish.com/innovations/giving-periods-a-greener-flow, to read Erika’s story.
The author is a B.S. Applied Corporate Management student at the Ramon V. del Rosario College of Business, DLSU. She can be reached at [email protected].
The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of DLSU, its faculty, and its administrators.