Brand Feature: Day Owl

Are innovative and intentional brands trending in your workplace? They are for most of our clients! Teams at Google, Microsoft and Salesforce are narrowly focused on buying only items with high ROI (ripple of impact) for their stakeholders. We’re here to help! At Coolperx, we have the highest standards for sustainable procurement. And, part of those standards is to find brands that are covetable and creating a true buzz. In this way, your employees and clients will appreciate the gifts you give them, and in turn feel appreciated. When appreciation spreads in this way, it impacts productivity, morale and the overall company culture! I’d say that’s more than a win-win.

This month, we’re talking about Ian and the Day Owl backpacks. This is a brand you need to know.

Ian Rosenberger is the founder of WORK, First Mile and Day Owl. To say that he is ambitious is inadequate. Ian seems to want to change the world. 

WORK, a nonprofit and First Mile, companies started by Rosenberger after he traveled to Haiti in 2010 to help out with the cleanup of the devastating earthquake that killed an estimated 250k people, now put families to work in dignified and meaningful jobs. There, he learned that plastic bottles can be transformed into fabric. "If Haiti could turn trash into $ = good," he wrote in his notebook, an inspiring start to say the least.

Both WORK and First Mile work in tandem to support people in Haiti to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty forever by viewing beach plastic as a natural resource– a plentiful and reliable one. This innovative solution to Haiti’s lack of exports has created economic opportunity for hundreds of families in the region.

Using the beach plastic to create fabric, they caught the attention of some top brands and designers such as Ralph Lauren, Puma and Timberland, as well as HP who uses the recycled material in their computers. 

A normal person would have probably stopped there. Ian had created a long-lasting solution that created equity in the world while, at the same time, cleaned it up. But, Rosenberger didn’t stop. He had committed to creating a positive impact globally. That’s where Day Owl comes in.

The brand, named to highlight our working- and innovating-during-daylight-hours (vs. a night owl), reimagines backpacks to be fully circular. He created a lasting design that is both functional and beautiful. The streamlined design features a laptop sleeve made from lake algae, a water bottle insert and the right amount of pockets to not become overly organized and lose all of your stuff. 

Speaking of that, in surveying people, we’ve learned that the backpacks that people get rid of first (meaning they keep for the shortest amount of time) are inversely related to the number of pockets. So, when you buy a backpack, look for fewer pockets!

The backpack has quickly become one of our best sellers and is now being used across the globe by several of our clients’ global teams.

Fun fact about Ian: he was on the show Survivor!

Learn more about Ian and Day Owl on Seth’s podcast, Scaling Sustainability. 

And, pre-order Day Owl bags for your team today.