For 15 years, the Cartier's Women's Initiative has been empowering women impact entrepreneurs through its annual international entrepreneurship programme. Attracting a continuously growing audience of over 1600 applicants, and having accompanied 240 promising female entrepreneurs from 56 different countries since its inception; the luxury Maison continues to prove its devotion to the championing of female changemakers. Now, after much anticipation, the 2021 laureates for the Cartier Women's Initiative have been announced, and New Zealand-based Rebecca Percasky is one of them.
The co-founder and director of sustainable packaging company, The Better Packaging Co.; Percasky set out on a mission to revolutionise the e-commerce industry's approach to packaging. After working in the world of e-commerce herself for a technology start-up company, Percasky realised quite early on that as the company grew, so did its waste contribution.
“Along with that growth, there's an extraordinary amount of packaging waste," Percasky says. "Eventually I said, ‘I can't be involved in that. I don't want to be responsible for putting any more plastic into the world.’”
From here, she started building and growing The Better Packaging Co., offering an alternative to traditional plastic—including home-compostable courier bags, bubble bags, and snap-lock bags. But the company's commitment to sustainability is further reaching than just packaging. Percasky also believes that part of the change lies in educating customers on finding the right recycling and waste streams. The company is B Corp Certified carbon negative and was one of the first signatories of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastic Economy Global Commitment.
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Percasky joins eight other successful women from across the globe as the South Asia and Oceania laureate; selected by an independent international jury committee. Each successful laureate will be awarded $100,000 USD in prize money, in addition to invaluable 1:1 training, collective workshops, media visibility and international networking opportunities, as well as the opportunity to join an INSEAD impact entrepreneurship program.
“For the past fifteen years, the Cartier Women’s Initiative has celebrated women impact entrepreneurs. It has long been our belief that to thrive, they need an enabling environment, a supportive ecosystem and an empowering culture," shared Cyrille Vigneron, president and CEO of Cartier International.
"During the Virtual Gathering, like-minded individuals and organisations from all horizons have joined us to explore how we can collectively uplift these outstanding change-makers. We look to the future with confidence by their side, as we witness them building up a tide of change, thus making the world a better place for generations to come.”
You can find more information on Rebecca Percasky and the full list of Cartier 2021 laureates on the Cartier Women's Initiative website.
