Founder Highlight Series: RENOME
A conversation with the Founder of RENOME, Laurence Hellmuth !
RENOME is a reusable cup network established in Perth by Founder Laurence Hellmuth and supported by Co-Founder Nordine Hellmuth. The RENOME cup model is focused on promoting the Circular Economy with an aim to optimise resources for as long as possible, rather than a one-time use. They are currently extending their community of partnered cafés that provide RENOME cups for their customers, for a small deposit. Over time, these cafes will save money and hope to shift consumers away from single-use plastics dependence. This model is pertinent to the plastic bans on clear cups (October in WA) and the proposed coffee cup ban in 2023.
RENOME is the solution you need to save yourself from being a victim of yet another case of greenwashing and for when you forget your BYO cup.
Today, we speak to founder Laurence about his experience and motivation for starting up RENOME:
1.What is the story behind your company, RENOME?
I’d had a long career in the state government in education and sustainable energy development but got frustrated with the pace of government - being quite an idealistic person, I wanted to see things happen.
My wife and I had always had a plan for a sabbatical to get a feel for things around the world and then after a year, I came back. A lot of the projects at my government job were still doing the same things since I left, so I had a feeling it wasn’t going anywhere. In government, it was either stopped, stalled, or other priorities came up.
My partner (and co-founder) and I decided to move overseas for another (second) kind of sabbatical and live in another culture, relocating to Germany. It was great to refresh my mind and get away from the frustrations of my previous job and live in a different culture where bike riding is the norm, public transport is easy and accessible, and there is widespread use of the national container scheme, which is so neatly ingrained in society and part of daily life.
It was great to see that, ‘hey it works here’, and get new ideas of what is possible.
The final straw of how I ended up here was from working for a meal-kit delivery start-up in Germany. After my long career at the state government where it would take multiple people to sign off on things - my manager, CEO, committees, and then a 6-month review, I learned quickly that things were different at a start-up. The speed was incredible to deliver things. In a start-up, if you identify a problem, you become the owner of that problem. Built the mentality that if you see a problem, it now becomes your problem to solve.
I then had a child which changes your perspective on your future and your child’s future. The birth of my son gave me the direction that I needed to get back into it (Climate Change) for my son’s generation. If he was to ask, what did I do (for the climate), I wouldn’t want to say that I tried once or I tried for 10 years and then got frustrated.
So, we relocated back to Perth to be with family! I had expected that someone would be tackling single-use coffee cups in Australia but there were no schemes at the time. The idea of RENOME was built from there and with my start-up training, state government experience, and time spent in Europe, I took it on board as my issue to solve.
2. What has surprised you since starting up RENOME and working in the climate change space?
First, one is being so focused on climate change and being quite idealistic myself, you think everyone is in the same boat, has the same problem, and cares about it as much as you do. Because you’re thinking about the issue 24 hours a day, you forget that other people have their own problems, and my main issue may not be their main issue.
I felt that the time was right and that people would be desperate for solutions to these problems. Surprisingly, when we did the first trials and spoke to people, they had other problems, they were interested in bettering businesses and finding solutions - but it wasn’t problem number 1 for them.
The second one is the amount of greenwashing going on at other businesses for profit purposes - seeing the green dollar and eco-labeling as an opportunity to make money. Their products may or may not be as genuine and as green as they say they are. The amount of greenwashing out there is a lot and it’s confusing the market - How are businesses meant to know what is greenwashing and what’s not?
There’s a lot of greys!
3. As a relatively new (social enterprise) start-up, what have you found the biggest hurdle to overcome?
There are heaps of hurdles but the easiest one to identify is traction – common for new businesses. You go out to the market with a great idea and a great solution to their problem but getting traction on that idea and adopting it is really hard for a small company like ours. Traction is the biggest hurdle and competing with greenwashing and misinformation.
When we do talk to people, it’s convincing them that adopting RENOME is not an operating hurdle. This is definitely the biggest problem now, explaining that it’s actually not hard to administer, it’s easy and works well with the normal workflow but this can be hard with pressures cafes have especially staff shortages with COVID.
4. What are the next steps for RENOME and what do you hope to achieve over the next years?
We’d like to build relationships with community groups and councils, rather than going directly to cafes on a one-to-one basis. We would like RENOME to build more of a broader sound base with the community group and council support, and then build the café network from there, rather than cafes feeling they’re going alone with us in their area.
We’re also looking at potentially a new product to augment what we currently have over the next years. Also, working closely with manufacturers to find ways for our cups to be made with the same material as our recyclable containers and navigate food standards which is all a working process.
Find out more about RENOME and how to get involved in the reusable cup scheme by looking at their website: https://www.renome.co/what-is-renome
