Episode 23: Riding the waves of ocean impact with Ben Kneppers, Co-founder of Bureo
Bureo first entered the ocean impact startup scene in 2013 with an innovative product and a big idea: skateboards made from discarded fishing nets. The idea was born when co-founders Ben Kneppers and David Stover, living in Sydney Australia at the time, wrangled with the idea of developing a business solution to tackle the emerging problem of plastic pollution. Ben's relocation to Chile for a new job provided an introduction to the feedstock that would go on to become their product ingredient and solution: mountains of discarded nylon fishing nets ripe for collection and reprocessing.
Bringing in third co-founder Kevin Ahearn the team hit their stride and through many varied and exciting evolutions Bureo are now recovering 800 tonnes of net annually from Chile, Argentina and Peru and have turned over two million pounds of waste net into products as varied as: sunglasses, chairs, skateboards, Jenga games and recently, Patagonia's hat brims.
In this revealing and raw podcast Ben gives us the 'founders' perspective of what it has been like to invest seven years and a whole lot of sweat into an ocean impact startup. Ben offers a range of tips, advice and guidance to other ocean impact entrepreneurs to help them on their journey and sets the scene for the future of this innovative business.
For more information on Bureo visit: https://bureo.co/
To learn more about the process of turning Bureo nets into Patagonia hats visit: https://bureo.co/pages/patagonia-hats
Follow @bureo on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/bureo/
To learn more and apply to The Ocean Impact Pitchfest visit: https://www.ocean-impact.org/pitchfest2020
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