Nick Doman wants to change the way businesses work, believing that 1% for the planet isn’t enough to tackle the social and environmental problems we face. In his view, impact shouldn’t be relegated to a mere by-product of a company’s operations and purpose needn’t be at the expense of profit; in fact, truly transparent and impactful companies will grow the fastest, especially when they harness tech for good. Ocean Bottle is already leading by example, having hit a turnover of £1m in its first year while being profitable and contributing 15% of revenue to plastic collection. Nick worked on the investments team of the UK’s largest venture builder, Blenheim Chalcot, and was included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2020. He has tri-citizenship of Britain, Australia and Canada, and his love for the environment has stemmed directly from exploring these countries’ beautiful landscapes and the oceans that surround them.
Q1. How does sustainability influence your work and daily life?
Doing less harm is how I see sustainability, but also doing good, doing more good. Proactively doing something for the planet in terms of the impact we make at Ocean Bottle was always going to be a fundamental part of my day-to-day life. I think hyper consumerism and the way in which the economy is set up has always fascinated me in terms of how we have set it up in all the wrong ways. Trying to battle against that, first and foremost with Ocean Bottle, has been the reason I get out of bed in the morning and why I'm so passionate about what I do - and that really filters into my personal life.
Of course, my work and personal life are very intertwined but in terms of sustainability in my day-to-day life, it's very easy to be idealistic about and very hard to actually come to practice. I think a lot of pressure is put on consumers, everyone is given options by businesses that don't match up to the idealism of a lot of people. And here, is why companies like Ocean Bottle and RE-PETE are so important, we're giving people options beyond what is conventionally available. You can care.
What me and my co-founder always found hilarious is that we were so evangelical when we started this business, we tried so hard to not use anything. And I genuinely had my first work-related breakdown when trying to not use any single use plastics, and found it totally impossible because the options were not available. You cannot live a remotely conventional life in a modern city today without consuming these plastics on a daily basis. You go into a supermarket with a tote bag with all the best intentions, and that tote bag is full of single-use plastics. It's incredibly hard to be otherwise.
In terms of how I try in my day to day life, it's just trying to be as deliberate as possible with my decisions. I wear my clothes until they're worn out, and then I'll get them repaired. I've always bought secondhand clothes and I, of course, I also do buy clothes firsthand, but it's a case of wearing them until they break and repair them. My friends mock me that there are items of clothing that l've been wearing since I was 14. And I've always had me downs from my brother.
It's sort of just ingrained, it’s not sustainable to always buy. In the same way, it's not sustainable just to buy an Ocean Bottle because you want a new cool bottle and it does good. Just use your own bottle. We tell people to use the bottle they have until it breaks. It's making sure that we use everything until it's end of life, and then we dispose of it and recycle it appropriately.
My dad knows how to sew everything, he grew up in the outback in Australia and he can sew anything back together. We had one or two shirts at a time, and the only thing that would wear out would be the collar, so I know how to sew a collar back onto a shirt. I had the same shirt for a decade. And he's still got the same boots that he had when I was 16 years old and wears them everyday by RM Williams. That was a very local brand for him when he was growing up, from his hometown. And it's now bought by LVMH, and is an internationally recognised brand, isn't that wild? They still offer repairs for life and he still has the same pair. My dad’s incredible.
Q2. Have you experienced any pivotal moments that deepened your understanding or commitment to sustainability?
That story around trying to be single-use plastic free, I can't tell you how pivotal that was.
All the pressure is put on consumers to get it right and terms like carbon footprint were invented to put their onus on the individual. We are almost powerless to really make a meaningful difference. Any change you make as an individual, without system change, without businesses really offering something different is scratching the surface. We can vote with our wallet and change our consumer patterns, and it does make a difference. But really, we need governments and businesses to start bringing better options to the table. There needs to be corporate responsibility for the materials that people put out and the waste that people create. The answer is we can't. We don't want thousands of people doing things perfectly, we want millions and billions of people doing it imperfectly and trying their best but also being supported by business and government to make those decisions. We need to make it as easy as possible. The world has been built on convenience and we can't go against that grain.
And that really was it. You can have the best intentions in the world, the idealism coursing through your veins at that moment. I really wanted to do right, and I genuinely broke down, because I just wasn't able to live up to that idealism. And if I wasn't able to in that moment, then how could we expect billions of people to make those choices every day.
People are so used to things being convenient that we, the people who really care about driving sustainability impact, need to compete on that convenience metric across everything otherwise it's just not going to work. And, we need to do better than the single-use plastic option, in Ocean Bottle’s case.
Q3. Have you encountered any unexpected benefits or opportunities from adopting sustainable practices?
It’s just easier, especially with clothes. I probably buy four or five items of clothing, excluding pants and socks, every year. I love the clothes I buy. It means I'm more conscious about what I buy, because I know l'm going to have it for a long time. And I buy stuff that's not necessarily, like "fashionable". I'll buy something I know will last, will be considered, for a long time. I wouldn't say my wardrobe is particularly small, I’ve just kept the stuff that I have. Something that I haven't worn in a couple of years will come back into the stuff that I wear on a day-to-day basis, and that's how I mix it up. But this is easier, I don't think about it so much. There have been moments where I have been fashion conscious, and it just takes up a lot of your time, your head space and your wallet.
Q4. In your view, what’s one simple and doable lifestyle change that could have a meaningful impact on sustainability?
I think you should really understand the value of what you buy and really make sure that you get the most out of it. I think when it's a mindset shift, it’s just very easy. Should I buy this? Will I value this for a long time? Does this value match up to how much I'm paying for it and how much its impact is on the world? If it's yes, then okay, let's get it. You find it way easier to say no to things.
Q5. How do you think circular economy principles — eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and support ecosystem regeneration — could be adopted in your industry or in a hobby?
We use many recycled materials in our product design and we're all about driving refill and the usage of the product. To avoid single-use, and really drive the adoption. It's not okay just to buy a product, especially if it's recycled, you actually have to use it. So, we have partnerships with people like Aqua Libra who are our refill tap, they collect plastic for every time you refill with one of their stations. We have an app that rewards you with plastic collection if you refill. We have a huge behaviour change element and that’s around eliminating that single-use adoption in places like the UK.
And then we also, of course, collect plastic. We collect a thousand plastic bottles for every bottle sold in the areas worst affected by plastic pollution and areas where that plastic leaks into the ocean. We work in Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Brazil, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
And then at the end of life, we've made our bottle fully modular, so if one part breaks, you can just replace it with another part, and you can deconstruct it and recycle it in your home recycling at the end of life, which is I think unique.
But there’s always work to be done. You know, could we really want to sell up our own recycling and system for our products? There's 2 million products out there in the world as of today. We believe they'll last a lifetime, but of course, some of them won't. And, we have a ten year warranty. So, at some point there will be a reasonable number of Ocean Bottles that will need to be recycled and repurposed, and the vision is that we will set up our own system to take that back and repurpose them back into Ocean Bottles. But again, the bottles are designed well enough that that's not a problem and we're not seeing many bottles having problems, as we’re only six years old at the moment.
Q6. Are there any books, documentaries, or podcasts around sustainability that you feel particularly inspired by and would recommend to others?
Blue Planet Two, I think that documentary galvanised us to set this business up. It still stands on its own feet as a seminal piece of work, and you know, David Attenborough is a hero at Ocean Bottle. I've got a letter from him tucked away in my room in the office but it's like pristinely kept and I was gonna frame it, maybe we'll frame it or donate it to the Ocean Bottle team. It's a rejection letter, he's saying that he can't work with us, but it's still touched his hand and is a hallowed, sacred object.
Q7. Is there a circular designer or brand you particularly admire and why? This doesn’t have to be in fashion.
I mean I think you guys, RE-PETE! Big fan since you got in touch. It’s very, very cool.
Q8. What is the most timeless piece in your wardrobe, where did you find it and how long have you had it for?
That's hilarious. There is a Niagara falls jumper that has gone through quite a wild story that I bought when I was 13 and it still fits me. My wife uses it more, sort of like a night-time, relaxing jumper but it's been borrowed by half my friends and stolen by one of my friends' brothers who tried to put it up on eBay. And I actually found it on eBay and was like, what's going on here? It's just an item of clothing that has literally been a part of my life for the last 18 years, and still is very much with me. l've got a photo of me when I was 13, at Niagara Falls wearing it and I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon, it still looks great. It's slightly faded, but I can't believe it. I'm really underplaying how much of a journey that piece of clothing has gone on. I still love it.
Q9. What do you consider when buying new clothing?
What's the value of it to me? How long can I see myself wearing this for? A long time? Is this something that I will wear, or is it something that will sit at the back of my wardrobe? Just making sure that the product is being used, used for a long time and used many times, is the most critical. And then, of course, materials. Organic, natural fibers are something that I prioritise. But again, if I can get 20 years of usage out of it, then I would consider that to be a well utilised piece of material.
Q10. How do you curate your wardrobe?
I make sure that I have a particular style that I stick with, and if it does evolve, it evolves slowly. There's a lot of lag time in terms of how many clothes I need to get through. But I just keep it simple, I’ve had a very similar style for a long time so I know exactly what it is that I like to wear. It's very bland colours, like navy's, dark greens, blacks, tans and whites, neutral. Very, very, sort of classic. You won't see me wearing many yellows or anything too bold. I think it's making sure things fit too, it's great having something that fits you. I have certain brands, I know fit me and last a long time. Clothes fitting you is always in fashion, and people buy stuff that doesn’t. I prioritise the brand and the quality, it’s just quite simple.
