"I thought this was brilliant. At the time, I was consulting with major companies, including Nike and Walmart, about sustainability efforts. I knew people had a really hard time understanding what sustainability was. Yet, this pencil was a perfect illustration. It was a useful item, made from all-natural materials. It was designed with the end in mind: when it was no longer useful, users could quite literally give it new life. I wanted to integrate the pencil into my work."
"I had been interested in the Sprout pencil as a symbol, but almost as soon as I began selling it, I saw the huge commercial potential. That first summer, we sold 50,000 pencils. I had no idea how much space that inventory would take up. I had pencils all over my house, and the neighborhood kids were helping to pack them up."
In 2013 a Kickstarter campaign introduced a plantable pencil invented by MIT students that contains seeds to grow herbs and vegetables after use. The pencil is made from all-natural materials and is designed for end-of-life planting, illustrating circular thinking. A Danish entrepreneur licensed rights for Denmark, expanded to all of Europe within a month, founded SproutWorld, and later acquired global rights. Early demand proved unexpectedly large, with 50,000 pencils sold the first summer and inventory filling a house. The product served both as a practical writing tool and a tangible symbol of sustainability, while the students preferred to pursue robotics.
Read at Business Insider
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