There are few Kiwi brands more iconic than the Warehouse. It’s famous for being the place where everyone gets a bargain, and a money back guarantee. It’s one of our great business success stories. But its founder, Sir Stephen Tindall, is now thinking hard about how that business success has impacted on the environment. 

"I’ve always had this environmental bent, and definitely never felt good when people bought stuff which went to landfill. Part of being able to provide people with bargains is that quite often, the products are what you would call reasonably temporary in nature. So you might sell, say, a towel that would last 5 years instead of one that lasts 10, but it’s about 25% the price. That is something you don’t feel good about, but unfortunately it is a reality. So what you’ve got to try and do, is mitigate that”. 

Sir Stephen opened the first Warehouse store on Auckland’s North Shore in 1982. After a rapid expansion, it was floated in 1994, and Sir Stephen turned his attention - and cashflow - to family philanthropic trust the Tindall Foundation and his seed and venture capital fund, K1W1. 

He says he’s used both to seek out environmental projects in the past decade in particular, from waterway restoration, to making plastic waste into valuable products. "Through K1W1, we're investing in clean energy like solar and green hydrogen, just to show that it does pay off to invest in these things.” He says you can use your influence as a successful business to inspire others to do the right things as well. “We’ve had a great relationship with our suppliers over the years, so we’ve used them a lot to look at, for example, how you can be much more sustainable with your transport system."

Sir Stephen says he’s always hoped to leave the world in a better place than he found it. "But I’m really sad to say now, the reaction to climate change isn’t going anywhere near as fast as it has to. So we’re probably not going to leave the world in as good a place (as we could). But you can only take courage from what you’re doing yourself, and do as much as you possibly can, and that’s where we’re hopefully leading the way."

Sir Stephen Tindall has been sharing insights from his entire business journey in the latest episode of HP Business Class, available to download HERE