Living In Harmony With Nature

Co-founder of OKU New Zealand, Helen Paul-Smith, trained as a yoga teacher in India in 1999 and earned an Ayurvedic Medicine diploma at Wellpark College of Natural Therapies in 2002. Here, she met her husband and fellow co-founder, Scott Smith, who was studying Herbal Medicine.

e created ŌKU out of our aroha for the native plants of Aotearoa, New Zealand and believe that the native plants are a tonga and have a story to tell,” said Paul-Smith.

ŌKU sustainability and business philosophy is based upon Mātaurang Māori knowledge of living in harmony and respecting nature. The couple had always wanted to create a business that gave back more to Papatūānuku (mother earth) than it took.

When Paul-Smith started ŌKU 13 years ago, there was nowhere for customers to buy native herbs for its teas, so the pair began by planting natives on whatever land the couple or friend’s properties had.

“As ŌKU has grown, we have continued to carry our land restoration projects that we harvest sustainably from for our products.”

As well as being involved in land restoration projects, ŌKU donates a percentage of its profits to other native restoration projects. The premises has solar panels, a Bioytix worm compostable waste system and a rainwater supply.

ŌKU’s products come in plastic-free packaging that is either compostable or reusable, and customers can purchase refill compostable tea pouches to reuse their tea tubes.

Each product is made from certified organic herbs except for the native plants, which are wild-harvested and spray-free.

Paul-Smith said that ŌKU differs from other brands with similar philosophies as it regenerates native bush to use sustainably in its products. The more the business grows, the more it grows a regenerative bush.

“We identified that the native plants of Aotearoa, New Zealand, hold many incredible properties, and our philosophy is as a business to be kaitiaki of these plants.”

ŌKU uses FSC-certified packaging materials to ensure that all the paper and cards are harvested from sustainable forestry. To further ensure sustainability, ŌKU uses certified organic herbs and avoids plastic in its packaging. The brand also goes through the BCorp certification process, an auditing process of the company's sustainability practices.

“It’s an excellent way to take stock of what you are practising sustainability across the board and offers advice and solutions.”

Paul-Smith said that she critiques each stage and makes changes for the better where possible and when technology allows, separating soft plastics, cardboard, and hard plastic one, two, and five, and composting leftover plant material.

“We also reuse things like plastic buckets for storage.”

She continued that she’s seen more businesses coming on board with more consumer pressures demanding better sustainable products, including technology advancements that have replaced plastic single-use packaging.

The next major step in the sustainable movement was to move away from singleuse items and create circular economies where businesses reuse.

She gave an ŌKU example, with its Chest Elixirs, which come in a glass bottle; she said it would be good if there were a system whereby companies in New Zealand could use an ordinary glass bottle, and these bottles could be cleaned and reused again for packaging not just with ŌKU but across the manufacturing sector.

“There is more awareness about what is good for the environment and protecting our waterways and oceans. Consumers make choices with their wallets, driving businesses to become more sustainable.”

Speaking on the future of ŌKU, PaulSmith said that as the company grows and scales up as a business, there was only so much that could be done alone.

“The community around the business, i.e. the supply chain, need to be on board with sustainability; otherwise, we end up with a gap in the supply lines. We do our best to manage this by creating policy documents that will go out to our essential supplies to encourage them to join us on the sustainability journey.”

With growing trends towards more conscious buying of sustainable products, Paul-Smith said she was surprised when, on a recent trip to Southeast Asia, that plastic was not viewed as problematic because it’s ‘recyclable’.

However, in the overall growth of the sustainability movement, Paul-Smith said, the most significant factor driving this was the overall experiences people were having as a direct result of climate change, worrying about their environment.

This growing concern has driven the uptake of ŌKU products, as people are more frequently turning to environmentally conscious brands.

Consumers are leaning towards readyto-drink vitamin or nutrient-dense liquids that could be consumed on the go, with key ingredients such as collagen, turmeric, and protein powder, and ŌKU is innovating a new product with Otago would be ready to release into the market in early 2024.

“It uses native ingredients but is very exciting and unlike any of our current ÕKU products.”

Paul-Smith’s favourite product was one of ŌKU’s newest, the Relax (Whakatā) tea, which she described as pleasantly soothing, that helps bring about calm and support sleep.

ŌKU’s ongoing drive to earn its BCorp certification is one of its most important goals.

“The whole sustainability process is a hikoi, and we are not at the destination yet, maybe never will be, but there will always be things we can change and improve.” n