If anyone can claim to know what Liquid I.V. is all about, it’s Sean Lavin. As the company’s first outside hire back in 2016, Lavin has done it all, from helping develop flavors to early marketing work as the brand went from burgeoning startup to its sale to Unilever in 2020. Yet even as Liquid I.V. has helped spark the still-burning hydration-powder craze, Lavin, in his current role as VP of impact, sees an opportunity for the brand to make an even bigger impact through its commitment to advancing access to water, donating product to at-risk communities and developing sustainable business practices.
With the business growing at a healthy clip (+80.6% sales through April, per Circana data), Lavin is looking to advance Liquid I.V.’s broader goals, whether that’s practical upgrades to more earth-friendly packaging, or potentially fueling the sustainability technology of tomorrow. Here’s an abridged version of our conversation.
On the company’s mission structure:
We always say that Liquid I.V. leads with purpose and we’re one of the very few companies that actually has an entire department dedicated to this. We’re constantly evolving our mission. My central job is to oversee and ensure that we’re actually looking at what our impact goals are year-to-year, constantly evolving them and then actually creating a three-year plan that really pushes us. It breaks down into three quadrants: the first is to build a model around expanding access to clean and abundant water for communities in need. And that is something we’re expanding out using strong partnerships and leaders in that environment. The other of course, is about responsible business practices around our operations, carbon reduction, water footprint, water stewardship, zero reduction, or zero waste and packaging, manufacturing and regenerative sourcing. And then that third item is continuing from where we first started, which was the idea that we can deliver hydration aid to communities in need – we’ve committed 150 million servings in the next decade. Those are the three things that I juggle in my role and my responsibility is to ensure that all of the different departments within Liquid I.V. are all adhering to some of our stretch goals so that they’re incorporating the impact into the work that they do.
On the $1.3 million in grants awarded by Liquid I.V. in January:
Some of the (grants) are more focused around education, some are focused on legal, some are activists, some are literally getting their hands wet and going into those communities and fostering ways for those communities to get a little bit more guidance on how they can actually access water.
We decided that we wanted to continue making this an annual project and continue funding local, small organizations that focus on communities here in the U.S. Instead of looking for another ten organizations and then another ten, we realized that if you really want to make an impact, and these are ten amazing organizations, why don’t we double up? So we’ve recently just agreed that we would go back to the same ten organizations and double the funds to $100,000. And that funding, by the way, is unrestricted.
We also added a grant that says we’re going to give you an additional amount of money if you can find another organization within that collective. And if you work together on a collaboration, we will fund that together because we also believe that at the end of the day, we’re more powerful as a group. And when the water sector has dozens, if not more, organizations all working almost in silos independently, it’s a huge lift.
On sustainable packaging innovation:
If you take something like our cartons — they are recyclable, they use PCR (post-consumer recycled materials), and I’m thrilled about that. But what if we started looking elsewhere for the source material? What if we didn’t look at trees as being the only source for our carbon for our paper stock? What if we looked at alternative waste materials – think about agricultural waste? What if we converted all the agricultural waste that typically gets burned? What if we collected that and then converted that to our packaging? That way we kind of close the loop. It’s these types of possibilities that drive us to continuing to make improvements that could literally create more impact in the world.
On short-term goals:
My next big goal in 2024 is to really push on more agricultural sourcing, or finding a way to be free of deforestation in our supply chain. I think more than anything, using waste instead of forests or trees to make packaging is the next space for us all to start moving into. There is enough waste in this world.