Jiminy Eco Toys is an Ireland's eco toystore - a social enterprise on a mission to inspire a playfully sustainable world, by making it easy to choose a gift that delights botht the child and their planet.
Named after Pinocchio's conscience Jiminy Cricket, it's the brainchild of Dublin mum Sharon Keilthy. Sharon found toy shopping for her daughter frustrating. Nearly everything was plastic wrapped in plastic, shipped 22,000km from China. So in 2018 Sharon left her senior role at an American multinational and set up Jiminy to give eco-minded customers more options.
Sharon says: "Instead of complaining about how eco-unfriendly toys are, I figured, why not use my business experience and be the toy company I hope the others will become? This is my eco-activism, activism through business. My vision is an eco-section in every toyshop."
Over years later, it's been an incredible whirlwind of an experience and the Jiminy team is so proud of all they've achieved, including:
- Empowering 15,000 unique customers to choose a gift that delighted both the child and their planet 💚 🌍
- Displacing over €2.5 million of regular toys with climate-kind minimal-waste toys, with a carbon impact like protecting 4,500 mature trees from deforestation 🌳🌲
- Spreading info and inspiration on sustainability to people across Ireland and to the global toy industry, by organising and speaking at events, including the world's biggest toy trade fair Spielwarenmesse, where Sharon has been a main-stage speaker the past 2 years 💡🌈
The toy industry is just starting towards sustainability:
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Unsustainable materials: 90% of toys are still from new plastic:
- Extracting and refining the oil to make this releases so much CO2, it would take 1 billion trees[1] to absorb it all;
- Most plastic toys are mixed materials and can't be recycled.
- High toy-miles: 80% of toys are made in China - that's 22,000km of transport, adding another 20% to their carbon footprint.
Jiminy Eco Toys offers a refreshing alternative:
- Sustainable materials: Natural materials - not just wood but also innovative bio-plastics (100% from plants), recycled cardboard, and paper - or safe recycled plastics.
- Low toy-miles: Made in Europe - a maximum of 2,000km 'toy-miles' - 10 times fewer than China.