NOSOTRAS. OUR STORY.

We are sisters. We are Mexicanas. We are sustainability. We are …

We are Aidee and Mónica, the co-founders of VOLVERde. We are two of five badass, chingona sisters and daughters of Mexican immigrants. Though we were raised in the Chicagoland area, we grew up making regular trips to Mexico. There, we saw first-hand how intertwined our family’s fate is with nature. Our family in northern Mexico was constantly struggling with water shortages due to industrial pollution of freshwater sources. We had to take quick, cold showers to leave enough water for others. Our family in southern Mexico comes from a remote village with no municipal trash collection, and every home was responsible for discarding its own trash, most of which was composted. It was during these trips that we learned about closed-loop packaging as we were sent by our parents to return empty soda cans to the corner store. We didn’t know it at the time, but these experiences planted a seed inside us.

Back in the US, we grew up opening the butter cookie tin and finding needles and thread. We grew up opening the sour cream container and finding salsa. We grew up instinctively putting away plastic bags after unpacking groceries and using them later as garbage can liners. Like many in our community, we were taught to repurpose and reuse items out of necessity and respect. We didn’t call it “sustainability” or “zero waste” – it’s just what we did and how we lived.

VOLVERde blossomed out of these profound childhood experiences and our desire to see more sustainable products made for us, by us—black, brown, indigenous, women, and people of color. We saw the need for a space that honors, celebrates, and reinvents our cultural traditions of sustainability with modern ease, so VOLVERde was born.

SOMOS VOLVERDE. WE ARE VOLVERDE. 

We aren’t discovering sustainability. We’re embracing it by going back to the basics, just like our abuelitas did and taught us.

VOLVERde aims to return to our traditions of sustainability. Our customs of reusing, repurposing, and being conscientious stewards of our planet’s resources. Our ancestors cared for the earth, and it cared for them in return.

VOLVERde is an online marketplace of carefully curated, beautiful, effective, low-waste products for your body and home sourced from a variety of responsible brands. We exist to make it easier to discover sustainable product swaps, shop responsibly, and minimize plastic waste.

We celebrate the sustainability traditions of our Latinx culture. Low-waste was the way of our abuelitas, and it will be the way of the future. We are intentional in our focus on the Latinx community, given our cultural connection to re-use and our disproportionate burden from plastic pollution, toxic products, and climate change. This is why VOLVERde highlights products made by artisans that identify as black, brown, indigenous, and people of color.

As a female-founded company, VOLVERde also works to amplify other women-led sustainable businesses. We are proud that all of our products are sourced from women, Asian, black, brown, or indigenous-owned businesses.