Polar Bear Nation
What it is: An apparel company dedicated to saving polar bears and fighting climate change
Founders: Connor, Emma and Hayley Gilbert (Editor’s note: They’re 17-year-old triplets!)
Date founded: October 2007
Location: Annapolis, MD
Websites: PolarBearNation.com, PolarBearNation.org, StandUpForEarth.com, Facebook, Twitter
Store: polarbearnation.storenvy.com
Types of products on Storenvy: T-shirts, sweatpants, fleece jackets
Storenvy: You and your sisters founded Polar Bear Nation when you were 15 — wow! What inspired you? What is the company all about?
Connor Gilbert: We’re young people, and we’re deeply concerned about what the future holds for our planet and our society. We were moved by reports from the Arctic that even polar bears — literally 1000+ lb animals, “kings” of their ecosystem — are dying, and are in fact now listed a Threatened species. In the next fifty years, it’s predicted that we could lose up to 2/3 of the current bear population due to the loss of Arctic sea ice, and the resulting shorter hunting season.
So, with that sort of situation, we knew that we couldn’t just sit back and let it happen; we wanted to raise public awareness of this dire problem, and we wanted to target a group often ignored by bigger organizations: teens and young adults. Thinking about that, we considered the ways to get attention among that type of people, and the first idea we came up with was through clothing. Who doesn’t like a great shirt that shows what they believe in? And, whenever someone buys a shirt or other item, we give them a card (printed on recycled paper of course!) directing them to our action site, PolarBearNation.org, helping them continue to get involved in the climate fight.
We donate 50% of our profits to Polar Bears International, but what we don’t donate goes to building up the Polar Bear Nation.
Watch Connor and Hayley on CNN’s “Young People Who Rock”
