My conversation today is with the Co-Founders of Guayaki Yerba Matte, Alex Pryor, and David Karr. Since Guayaki was founded in 1996 they’ve had a different approach to business. Guayaki pioneered a new business model - Market Driven Regeneration.

Most businesses don’t account for the true cost or externalities of doing business like the emissions from extraction of natural resources, manufacturing, and shipping. Business as usual maximizes profits.

Market Driven Regeneration acknowledges that there are costs to doing business. Guayaki works to internalize those costs. They do this by working

A few ways they do this are:

• Paying Fair Trade premiums to Indigenous and smallholder farmers across South America
• Growing their Yerba Matte without pesticides or clear-cutting forests, which increases biodiversity and draws down carbon
• Hire people who were formerly incarcerated

Guayaki was a founding B Corp and they acknowledge that they’re not perfect but are constantly looking to learn and improve, even if it means seeking complexity to maximize their positive social and environmental impact.