The below is a guest post from Yasmin Grigaliunas, CEO and Co-founder of the World’s Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS).
With the strong proliferation of knowledge available to us via the internet and issues of civil and social issues becoming more transparent. Individuals and communities are more informed than ever before. And they don’t just want to ‘buy stuff’. They want businesses and brands that support causes they care about.
At the same time, government agencies are trying to figure out the best ways to navigate and develop policies that are sustainable and combat climate change. In 2019 and 2020 we have seen mass protests around the world regarding many issues, including climate change.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. It is going to take governments, communities and businesses working together to create lasting change.
One strategy for creating collaborative climate solutions that engage government and community would be through community-based businesses that offer hands-on, community-based experiences, workshops and services.
These educational experiences offer community members the chance to learn new skills such as repairing products and give government agencies the opportunity to educate and understand the conversation around sustainability at the local level of their communities.
World’s Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS) is a Brisbane based start-up/scale-up, designing solutions to commercialise the circular economy through the activation of dormant goods for good. We maximise the value of goods already in the economy, through the circular principles of recycle, repurpose, reuse, and re-commerce. In doing so, we’re diverting landfill, and drawing wealth from waste which is invested back into our local communities.
We host and run Brisbane’s first circular economy retail precinct. A recommerce marketplace providing a platform for Australians to participate in circular practices through the buying and giving of dormant goods that would have otherwise risked going to landfill.
Social enterprise business models like WBGS have social and environmental impact embedded within our framework. We provide spaces for our customers to learn and engage with products in order to renew and repair.
Our community makerspace allows us to educate customers about how to repurpose, repair and reuse products to keep them out of landfill, and also gives them opportunities to develop real hands-on skills which they can take back into their homes and communities. This is all in addition to our warehouse which has high-quality products for sale!
By engaging the community on three separate but all inter-related levels we give them the resources, tools, and skills to change their consumption to a more sustainable framework and lead a responsible consumption revolution to combat climate change.
There is an opportunity here for government agencies to get involved using WBGS or social enterprise, community-focused businesses like ours to engage with community at a grass-roots level. Together we can create new experiences that challenge existing norms around how we use and dispose of our ‘stuff’ and preserve our resources for future generations.
About the expert
Award-winning Yasmin Grigaliunas, CEO and Co-founder of the World’s Biggest Garage Sale (WBGS), is on a mission to turn Australia’s circular economy aspirations into reality while at the same time providing social good. Having been described as a “one-percenter”, one of those people with a natural capacity and passion only matched by her energy for entrepreneurship, she is living proof that we can make a positive impact on people’s lives and the future of the planet through the events and experiences we create.
It all started in 2013 when she did a spring clean and garage sale to sell the family ‘stuff’. She did a shout out to friends and family, and before she knew it, what started as a humble spring cleaning garage sale to raise money for cancer research, exploded into an annual community event in Brisbane, giving birth to WBGS!
She could see the waste just keep coming and rather than sit back and watch the problem grow, Yas – who maintains energy levels that are the envy of most – set about creating and realising socially and environmentally positive community solutions for our ever-increasing waste streams.
Fast forward a few years and Yas ditched a lucrative career to found WBGS, a Brisbane based start-up/scale-up, designing solutions to commercialise the circular economy through the activation of dormant goods for good. Currently, WBGS hosts large-scale local re-commerce events and is developing a digital platform enabling communities globally to reproduce these large-scale re-commerce events through a toolkit.
To date (not including the 2018 main event), WBGS has donated over $314K to charities, diverted over 3.3-million kgs of potential waste from landfill and contributed over $1.7-million in social value to the global economy. Yas and her organisation are living proof that you can provide positive impact for people, planet and profit for purpose.
Image description: Headshot of Yasmin wearing black-rimmed glasses and red lipstick, smiling at the camera. She has shoulder-length blonde hair and is wearing a black blazer over a black and orange branded shirt.
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