A yoga mat as unique as you

A yoga mat as unique as you

This piece was written by Zentribe

ZenTribe has created a yoga mat with a difference, its time to evolve your exercise routine. With a mat created with sustainably sourced materials and practises to ensure a positive impact on our amazing vast planet, that we call home.

At ZenTribe our mission is to make a positive impact on our planet. We plan to do this by using sustainably sourced materials to produce our mat and to support local communities. We will leave no carbon footprint and plant a trail of trees behind us for future generations to enjoy. We want to leave the world greener than it is currently and share our knowledge with our customers on how they can contribute.

Our yoga mission is to provide a yoga/pilates mat which is environmentally friendly and has a low impact on the earths resources. But also to be comfortable for you to use during your sessions both at home and in classes. Allowing you to focus on being present in each of your postures or the flow that you’re in. This is why our mat is super lightweight and has a thickness of 5mm, 180cm in length and 69cm in width allowing for extra room for you to move on the mat.

ZenTribe was created by our founder Kylie Jonkman, who is a passionate yogi and lover of the ocean. ZenTribe's journey started after Kylie witnessing the obscene amount of plastic wipes being used after attending a hot yoga session and after several surf trips, where Kylie witnessed the damage on marine life and delicate marine eco systems being caused by plastic polluting our oceans and coastlines.

Feeling inspired with a mission to create a positive change and being aware of our planet's cry for us to make a change in our consumer habit and to do things differently. Kylie invested a lot of her time researching what happens to unwanted plastic, other sustainable materials and if it was possible to reuse plastic's. Resulting in the idea of using up-cycled plastics into a yoga mat combined with unwanted surplus cork granules left over from the wine corking industry.

Once the idea of ZenTribe was created and a supplier was found, the real challenge started, funding! ZenTribe had been born during the start of Covid-19 and needed the funding to supply stock, branding, marketing etc. To help with this Kylie decided to create her dream into a reality by launching a Crowdfunder with a target of £5,000 to reach within 28 days, even though she had never crowdfunded before! Thankfully she found help in a recommended small business advisor who taught her the basics of social media marketing, promotional work and how to crowdfund, as Kylie had no business, marketing or fund-raising experience at the time. First time for everything, why not jump in the deep end, at least I know I can swim and that I tried, was her mindset during the entire process. However she never expected to deal with a personal hardship of loosing her uncle to Covid during the process among other set backs, at times she felt helpless, frustrated and concerned she'd never reach her target. But with the help and support from the amazing community that had been created, she did reach her target and even went over the set target! It just shows what you can truly achieve if you stick at it and put your heart into what you do.

After successfully smashing her target the fun could start in the form of a website being built, stock being bought and a space where the stock could be kept, among other things. This part was the exciting bit and yet there was still more work to be done like selling our amazing mats and spreading the word of what we do. The journey never ends and we learn new tips, tricks everyday, we are continually growing, learning and being inspired from other amazing like minded businesses. With continuing support from our great online community who are cheerleading us to succeed, we are after all only 6 months old! This why we are so excited to be part of the ESGmark® community, to collaborate with like minded businesses and to share our story to inspire and encourage others in their dreams. We can all make small changes and together we can make a difference.

ZenTribe creating a yoga mat as unique as you…