MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE - CAROLINE DE LÉZARDIÈRE

First up we have Nature Unite’s inspirational Founder, Caroline de Lézardière. She is on a mission to empower our community to make a change in their behavior towards single-use plastic and find useful solutions to our every day to help prevent the growing plastic crisis

Below you can read the script from her MIAB interview and we have also added a few brilliant bits for you to get to know Caroline a bit better!

WHO ARE YOU?

I am Caroline and I am the Founder of Nature Unite. I am also a mother, a wife, a daughter and a friend, and in between, I am a just an ordinary nature and ocean lover trying to do what I can to make our planet a better place.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO BECOME AS ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE AS YOU ARE TODAY?

Well, I think my initial inspiration came from just loving nature, loving our oceans and forests and just seeing what devastating effect we had on them. I saw a great video a while back which was saying that we were dependent on nature, nature is not dependent on us and that nature will always recover but we may not. That was the moment I started asking questions that I never got any real answers to. Such as ‘why do we use single-use plastic bottles in the UK when we have such great tap water’. It was those types of questions which lead me to realize that I had to do something about this.

IN WHAT WAY ARE YOU BRINGING POSITIVE CHANGES TO YOUR COMMUNITY?

I think I founded Nature Unite out of a little bit of frustration. I had, at that point made a decision to do something about my own way of living around plastic but I could not really find many solutions they were all saying “if you do this then you are doing everything you can do to help” but for me, through Nature Unite, the most important things was to communicate that there is no silver bullet and we have to focus on so many small things at the same time, and whatever you can focus on is a really great effort. I just wanted to make Nature Unite a safe space to share information and solutions. Hopefully, people really feel that with the community we are creating.

NAME ONE SMALL BUT POWERFUL CHANGE PEOPLE CAN MAKE

So I feel a small but powerful change is very personal so I’ve always been of the opinion that you have to start with really small things that do not affect your life negatively. For me, that was that I would never ever buy single-use plastic water bottles again. Of course, through the company, I will always use my Nature Unite bottle but for other people, it might be other things. You could buy bamboo toothbrushes instead of plastic for example. Whatever is it, start with the smallest of things. If you start with the big things then you notice straight away that you may not be able to stick with it. If you start small then you feel so excited that you were able to stick to that new routine that you start to change another habit and another. Suddenly you will be a superhero removing lots of plastic from your life! That will be a brilliant achievement.

PLEASE SHARE A KEY RESOURCE THAT YOU LOOK TO FOR GUIDANCE

You might not believe this but when I started out my journey with Nature Unite, I was actually rubbish at social media so when I wanted to get educated on this topic, I went to publications. I read regularly titles such as The Economist, they have so many great sustainability writers. I’ve also always had National Geographic at home. There has been a real clear shift in the last few years in how the media take a heavier stance on environmental issues, in terms of the problem, in statistics; facts and deeper opinions of those who write about environmental topics. That has helped me create my own opinion on how I look at solutions and also why we are supporting solutions here at Nature Unite.

MORE ABOUT CAROLINE

Full name - Caroline de Lézardière

From - Uppsala, Sweden

Main occupation - Trying to make the world a better place all around

Favorite place in the world is - Lofoten, Norway

My favorite book right now is - Anything by Barbara Cartland – I know super cheesy right, but I just love a good 19th-century love story!

I cannot live without - My family and friends

My ocean spirit animal is - Manta Ray, I love how they can be so beautifully calm and within a second they are on the move

Three words that would describe me are - Passionate, Loyal and always up for some fun

My favorite thing about our oceans is - The different sound they make

First activity in the morning is - Pressing the snooze button, then a cold shower

One of my dreams in life is - That we reach CO2 neutrality in the world

My go-to sustainable product is - The Nature Unite bottle, of course!

My bucket list includes - Diving at the Great Coral Reef in Australia, sailing to the Galapagos Islands and being a part of changing the world for the better

This blog post was written by the Nature Unite team