Cleaner & Brighter

Cleaner and brighter

Our mission is simple: a cleaner and brighter world. We make detergents and cleaning products using the best natural ingredients, like the Sapindus mukorossi fruit. You know, those foaming supershells! Together, we always try to find the best balance between your washing and cleaning experience as a fan, and the positive impact that we realise with our products.

Heading for 100% natural

We innovate and lead the way in the use of renewable raw materials. More than 99% of our ingredients are of natural origin. This is important, because the use of fossil raw materials is finite.

Fair Trade washing and cleaning

We strive to achieve a positive impact on all those involved in the Seepje chain. We are a member of the World Fair Trade Organization, and with it the first Fair Trade washing and cleaning brand in Europe! Exceptional? As far as we are concerned, it should be the most normal thing in the world to take account of the impact a product has on other people.

The soap from the Sapindus mukorossi shell is what gives our Seepjes their unique cleaning power! This grows in abundance in the Himalayas! In 2019 we bought more than 4 million shells for a fair price. But we can still do much better! We are currently working on:

More direct contact with individual farmers and cooperatives. That way we can be sure that the fair price translates into a liveable income for all those involved. In the last year we have signed up several new suppliers; with them we are building a long-term relationship, with transparency as a key priority.
Training farmers in order to improve their working conditions, strengthen their market position and increase production (of shells and other crops).
Tree planting project: last July we planted no less than 1,500 Sapindus saplings, which will be shared out in a year among interested small-scale farmers.

And, of course, we support our partners when they are going through difficulties… Like during the corona crisis, as we have paid in advance for the orders that have already been placed, even though they couldn’t be delivered due to the lockdown. And did you hear about the ‘Washing for Nepal’ campaign, which we set up after the earthquake in Nepal in 2015? We heard that the workplace had partially collapsed and our shell farmer and his people were having a tough time of it. Together with our Seepje fans we collected more than 30,000 euros in less than a week. This enabled us to provide 1,300 people with tents, medicine, water and food.

Based on the 10 WFTO principles, over the coming years we will implement improvements which contribute to a sustainable and transparent supershell chain. They will monitor our progress with independent audits. Striving for reduced inequality, lower poverty levels and stronger communities is also an important aim of the B Corp community that Seepje is part of.

Less CO2 emissions

Seepje costs less energy to make and less energy is needed to filter the wastewater. Plus, we compensate for our transport from India and Nepal in collaboration with The GoodShipping Program.

The more natural an ingredient, the less it needs to be processed. That makes a difference in CO2 emissions! Did you know that all ingredients are filtered from the water by water purification systems? When using Seepje, the waste water is considerably cleaner! It therefore takes less energy to purify the wastewater.

Our supershells are transported from the port in India to the Netherlands on the basis of sustainable biofuel. These are 2nd generation biofuels, made from waste or residual flows. Seepje purchases this biofuel through The GoodShipping Program, and they make it available to the shipping industry. With transport alone, we save about 1,400 kg of CO2 emissions every year.

Furthermore, we also work with Siza in Arnhem. They provide a sheltered working environment for people with various handicaps. We provide jobs for 15 people at Siza who all love working for Seepje! They assemble all our shell products!

We choose our packaging materials consciously and keep our impact on the environment as low as possible. In 2019 we saved 39,864 kilos of plastic. That’s the equivalent of more than a million plastic bags!

The positive impact we pursue originates in the core of our products and that is where we measure our success. We would like you to join us in our mission! Together we can make the world a cleaner and brighter place!

Join Seepje!

Meanwhile, at Seepje HQ...

As 21-year old students Melvin and Jasper eagerly watched a documentary that showed how a Nepalese woman used a natural form of soap. They wondered: why do we use synthetic and oil based products, when a natural alternative is available?

Currently, we have a team of 15 and from our Headquarters in The Hague we aspire to have a positive impact with over 18 different Seepjes. Our products are available in more than 4.500 stores in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany!

About us