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Sustainability is Built-In - Viktoriia Siedova on Green Door Openers & Deal Closers
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Viktoriia Siedova is the Co-founder of The Good Plastic Company, manufacturer of Polygood® - a 100% recycled surface material used by global brands including Nike, Lush, and McDonald’s. She leads global sales and marketing. For over 7 years she’s been building the company from startup to an international player recognized by the A&D industry. She started at PwC’s international consulting practice working with major production holdings in Oil & Gas and metals, which shaped her pivot to sustainability and entrepreneurship. Now she is building one of the rare sustainability-driven material businesses that is truly scalable. In her free time she is a creator, fashion influencer, connector.
About the FutureStrategies podcast and your host:
I’m Florian Schleicher, a marketing strategist. I help brands gain clarity, spark momentum, and turn strategy into something that actually moves people. In 2022, I started my marketing studio FUTURESTRATEGIES. to do exactly that. I currently work with corporate clients from 11 countries.
If you want more, check out my FutureStrategies newsletter – monthly inspiration on marketing, strategy and sustainability.
And if something’s blocking your brand from doing its best work, let’s talk.
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Transcript
The Future Strategies Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Always to have some real benefit for customer as sustainability is just an add-on and people consider that it should be already built in rather than some standalone feature which you are selling.
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to the Future Strategies Podcast. My name is Florian Schleicher. I'm a marketing strategist focused on sustainability and I'm your host here. You can listen to my interviews with international experts and together we will explore where marketing, strategies and sustainability intersect. with great examples, insightful stories and a look behind the scenes of some amazing brands. If you're curious how to apply all of that for your own business, I do this for my clients from all around the world.
00:00:44
Speaker
But more on that at the end of this episode. Now let's jump into today's interview.
Meet Viktoria Siadova and The Good Plastic Company
00:00:51
Speaker
Today I'm talking to Viktoria Siadova. She's the co-founder of The Good Plastic Company, a manufacturer of PolyGood, a 100% recyclable surface material used by global brands, including Nike, Lush, and McDonald's.
00:01:07
Speaker
She leads global sales and marketing. For over seven years, she's been building the company from a startup to an international player recognized in the A&D industry. She started at PVC's international consulting practice, working with major production holdings in oil and gas and metals, which shaped her a pivot to sustainability and entrepreneurship.
00:01:30
Speaker
She is building one of the rare sustainability-driven material businesses that is truly scalable. And in her free time, she's a creator, fashion influencer, and connector. It's great to have you here on the show today, Victoria.
Exploring Sustainable Materials: PolyGood
00:01:43
Speaker
Thank you, Florian, for inviting I'm really happy to connect and to have a chance to talk to you within this podcast. Yeah, likewise. So we met at an event, I think it was in February, and I talked about my trend report. You talked about the Good Plastic Company. So I know what you're doing, but for our listeners who don't know what the Good Plastic Company does, can you summarize it briefly? So we are the manufacturer of sustainable material, which is made from a hundred percent recycled plastic. And it's a panel, large, large format and material, which is then used to create furniture and the interior design pieces. We lead this category of material as of now, as we are the largest producer. We started seven years ago in the Netherlands and currently expanded also to us.
00:02:33
Speaker
We are approximately 70 people in the company now, and I'm being one of the co-founders and I lead our sales activities, marketing, key accounts, distributors, and whatever, which helps this company to grow further. And you mentioned it's about furniture. What kinds of furniture? What are we talking about here? It's a panel material. So then you can cut it out and create, for example, tabletops, reception areas. You can put it on the wall. You can create dividers. So depending on design, actually material is highly versatile. So you can transform it in any shapes. But I would say retail displays, different coffee tables, tabletops, and wall clouding are our main applications.
Collaborating with Brands and Avoiding Greenwashing
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah. And so basically you're part of the circular economy because you're using something that would have been waste and then you repurpose it into all of these forms of furniture. Yeah. We pioneered this sustainable materials in the market as a whole big new category. At the time when we started, people were looking for something sustainable, and but also scalable. And we were right in the moment with our development. Yeah, wow. And you work with some big players like McDonald's and Nike.
00:03:47
Speaker
So I would be curious, why are they working with you? There was a big pressure on brands and companies that they need to transform their supply chains. They need to be more transparent. They need to reduce the carbon footprint. They need to incorporate more recycled materials in their programs. So all of them have their own design departments who work in on the design of the stores or design of the restaurants like McDonald's. And they had a high pressure to do something to make a positive change because some of the companies has bad connotation, for example, in fashion, like Nike. Oh my God, it's a bad polluter.
00:04:26
Speaker
you need to change. So, of course, ah these companies were looking for some solutions which could help them to do things right, not to do greenwashing, and to find really good supplier who can not only be sustainable, but also fulfill their needs like Nike has more than 1,000 stores around the world, and they ah need to work with somebody who are able to deliver on the corporate level worldwide with a stable quality, it's a stable color. And this is why when they found us occasionally and go through all of the checklists with the questions, we say, yeah, yeah, it's possible.
The Business of Sustainability: Challenges and Strategies
00:05:06
Speaker
We run some pilots, prototypes. They see that everything's working well with us. And this is how, like with Nike, we're working already for... four
00:05:14
Speaker
five years with McDonald's. I think it's like more like two or three years. yeah And we have many other clients in architectural and design world who are specifying as like for offices and hospitality industries. It's also some large brands, but they're coming through their architectural business. And I would be curious because you basically sell recycled plastic to a procurement team that is probably measured also on cost per square meter.
00:05:39
Speaker
So what role does budgeting play in all of this? Of course, it's a crucial role. I would say sustainability, it's a nice door opener for the businesses as we are talking to designers and architects who want to tell a story, who want to show something nice. But of course, then you go to the more operational people who are not really into sustainability and your story, but they're looking at the prices. We are, as of now, we are not more expensive than traditional materials. So this was the main course that we didn't want to sell it as something premium so the goal was to create materials that could become a new norm so when people choosing among standard materials they could also see recycled plastic as something common typical standard with a normal price with also good features and quality so of course we had the discussions and we always try to find a way how to manage ah and to get into the project but yeah our
00:06:39
Speaker
price per square meter is comparable to other solid surface materials on the market. Yeah. And I liked to at the point that you mentioned that, and you also said this in the presentation, which I attended, sustainability opens doors, but it doesn't close deals. Yeah.
00:06:54
Speaker
And I think we see this all over happening and and especially when sustainability is just the the one and only thing that companies are selling. They are struggling right now because nobody wants to just buy something
Measuring Impact and Adapting to Market Needs
00:07:08
Speaker
sustainable. Yes, we all want things to be sustainable, but then if they cost more of or if they require more effort, companies, big companies, especially, they are going through budgeting calculations and they think, yeah, okay, we can't really afford to do that. So,
00:07:23
Speaker
What is it then that closes the deals for you? Because you are comparable with the others materials. and Is it then that that those teams that you work with say, okay, so if it's like the same price and same quality, we'll go for the most sustainable option. Let's say this way within our timeline of the company, things change. So when we started and we sell, like we were saying, we sell in 100% recycled plastic materials, it was enough for people to buy it with even some premium because they want recycled plastic. Later on, we needed to sell material which has a carbon footprint reduction compared to traditional materials. So we made EPD, we measured so like we know how much CO2 we produce and how much lower it compared to other materials. So companies who had the strict policies on where they need to reduce carbon footprint and they need to get all of these points, like this was a selling point, which helps to get there. I think in the past, maybe half of a year, there is a big shift against sustainability because firstly, sustainability has connotation of being expensive. Sustainability has connotation of having this vaguer
00:08:38
Speaker
idea of let everybody be good, but nobody knows what does it mean to be good. And ah also, of course, there is crisis like in Europe hitting much, hitting much, but ah Europe was our main market where people were mostly ah conscious and trying to chew sustainably.
00:08:57
Speaker
ah So now the you need to sell benefits of the materials. So it's quality. Our material is lightweight. so Compared to stone, we are lighter. Our material is water resistant. Compared to ashpil, it could stay much longer for bathrooms, like in styles and countertops.
00:09:17
Speaker
always to have some real benefit for for customer as sustainability is just an add-on and people consider that it should be already built in rather than some standalone feature which you are selling. I like that the sustainability is already built in and it's more about the value that you're giving because then it's not just a sustainable choice, but it's a smart choice people can actually take. True. And now sustainability probably transforms into something around durability.
00:09:48
Speaker
So if you can use a sink or wear a clothes or build something that would last longer, ah this is also sustainable. Like look at marble in Italian villas. yeah like Probably it was very sustainable choice centuries ago since it still lasts long. It ages beautifully because everything should, this is also a question about like durable, it will not stay the same, but how it will age within the time and how it will transform, whether it still will be aesthetically pleasant and whether it still will ah fill the role why it was used. So sustainability could be treated from different aspects.
00:10:26
Speaker
I would be curious because you're also expanding into the United States. and How different the markets actually are Europe and the United States? I've read this somewhere that Europeans buy sustainability, whereas Americans buy design. Is that true or what other differentiators do you see in how those markets react to your offer?
Expanding PolyGood in the US Market
00:10:46
Speaker
It was interesting. We started our expansion into North America in two years ago. And it was exact shift to to sustainability at the time. So everybody wanted sustainable materials. And we were probably the only one on the market because nobody cared about this at all. Nobody entered this market. Nobody grew.
00:11:07
Speaker
And people wanted really to build in a different way. ah For example, Gensler, they are the largest architectural firm in the world. They have their... against your sustainability standards so all of the architects across all of their projects should choose materials which have epds but where you measure carbon footprint which has recycled content like there is some level of and other parameters which are helping them to make design in a more sustainable way of course since trump now coming and policies are changing the shift ah against sustainability happening. At the same time, of course, there is always question about design features. So I wouldn't say that sustainability was always the only one thing which tell us.
00:11:56
Speaker
But probably now people talk less about it. And we also trying to adapt and transform and finding ways How can we promote our product? And actually this was a goal to become just a material, just a standard material, not a sustainable category as a nice to have thing in the project.
Marketing Strategies and Storytelling
00:12:18
Speaker
I would be curious because you just said that how do we actually promote it? So what are the ways you promote the good plastic company? What is working well for you? In architectural and design business, I think the main, like it's not emotional sale, and it's not ah that you make a advertisement you get a client immediately or you get requests so you need to work to get into the mind of the architect so that he remembers you when he gets occasionally in half of a year or in a year a project where ah your colors or your story or sustainability aspect or some other features come up and he thinks poly good this is something
00:12:57
Speaker
I need to use here. And, uh, that is why we do in a lot. And we like for the past years, I think we were crazy in doing everything. So we were part of major exhibitions. We were part of big collaboration. So Milan design week, Dubai design week, Paris design week. I traveled every week last year. I almost haven't been at home and yeah my husband probably was not happy for this. ah yeah ah We did a lot of private meetings because it's still B2B and our marketing is about bringing in nice materials, having boxes packed, having some brochures where you could describe things. But now people, mostly when they think about marketing, and thinking about social media and some messaging and communication, I sometimes think about what is written on the backside of our sample. So when our piece of material lying in somewhere in the libraries that people could understand where to reach out if they like it. So it's about multiple chat touches and being in top of mind when they think about a new project. So if your target audience goes to all of these design weeks, then of course you need to be there and to tell the story.
00:14:10
Speaker
Yeah, we have physical material. and you Probably not every industry is like this, but with materials, it's mostly physical. So it's events, meetings, but it's also kind of a nice thing because everybody not working in online and you have a luxury to say, I need to go to a person, I need to travel to Paris to meet with this designer. It's going to be personal connection and better outcome.
00:14:33
Speaker
And also, like all of the polygut patterns, they all have a different story about the waste that they are sourced from. Could you share some examples of what kind of waste you're actually using for those?
00:14:44
Speaker
So how do we work? so We work with different recycling centers who collect and sort plastic, so we don't do it ourselves, and we're buying it from them. And every recycling center has their own specialization. for example, one we are working with the largest one. They are part of Renui Co-Rip. It's a supplier located in the Netherlands. They specialize in on collecting refrigerators. So all of the materials which are based on their waste is made from refrigerators. Also, we have translucent collection and it's made from CD disc cases. And sometimes people say, but CD disc cases are not anymore in trend. It's probably you don't have enough material. well
00:15:26
Speaker
The amount which was produced within the whole time of CD disk and CD disk cases won't be probably enough for us to work within 30 or 50 years. Wow. Okay.
00:15:38
Speaker
still So many CD cases. Yeah. ah And actually it's always a question people rise, like, do you have enough raw material? Can you really supply? And there is no issue with raw materials. There is a lot of recycled plastic and recycling centers who are able to make it into a nice raw material. The main issue in in demand in making some nice, really feasible, sellable product rather than in ah finding the raw material. It's a lot of waste streams which could be incorporated. So probably, yeah, it's also one of the things. And then do the the companies that you work with actually choose the story behind the materials or are they more going for how it actually looks then?
00:16:21
Speaker
It starts from design. It always starts from design because there is, we are not ah ah one material in the design. So there are some walls, there is a whole building look where it is located, there is some light coming in. So it should be always a combination of different materials. So of course, the first thing is how it looks, if it's nice. then ah which story it tells and then which price you are giving us this project.
Building a Business: Adaptation and Professional Insights
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah. I find that your company is doing such a good job because you really have managed to build a sustainable business. that actually works, that is successful and that actually is growing. So I would be curious if now someone is listening to us and they also have a startup scale up and they want to build a business like yours, what would be your recommendations to them?
00:17:16
Speaker
And good question. I would say ah probably to look at trends and the feedback of a customer because we had many pilots within our lifetime. And if we were like some of the founders, they stick to the idea. They think, okay, we just didn't find yet the right audience. We just didn't find yet the proper market people would need to educate and...
00:17:44
Speaker
people will understand the value. But probably you're just doing something wrong. And it's ah important to listen to feedback, to talk to to your clients, to see where you could do better.
00:17:57
Speaker
Second, don't be afraid to hire professionals from the beginning. Like it was um probably not a mistake. I would say it was also a path, a journey, but none of the people in our business were coming from plastic or from technology. Okay. We did a lot of tests and manipulations, you know, inventing the wheel again. We were surprisingly opening the press to see which pattern and how plastic flakes will combine and in which pattern it will end up. But actually, ah if we hire the technologies from day one, probably there will be no ah surprises in the moment. And we could have passed ah some of the challenges with the product when we needed to adapt to to market standards ah without so much effort and lost time. Because the main thing which you could lose within your business is not the money, but time. If you are not doing things correctly or while you were working
Global Marketing Strategies and Real-Life Connections
00:18:58
Speaker
on a product, nobody already needs your products.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, you were talking about the channels that you're using and and you mentioned the design weeks are very important. Any other marketing channels that are a priority for you and that you see working greatly for reaching your customers and your audience?
00:19:17
Speaker
um so Platforms like Material Bank, but it's very industry specific, like somebody from other industry would not use it. ah It's a platform who send in samples so that architects okay yeah a sample the next day and you can order it in the evening and in the morning at eight in the morning, you already have a box with all of the samples on your desk. So you have a quick decisions.
00:19:41
Speaker
ah we worry Probably PR is is a big one then also working with all those media magazines or not that much. Yeah, PR is good, but honestly, i would say it's add-on. It's nice to have. It's and not a must-have for business to grow, but it was important for us ah to enter American market.
00:20:03
Speaker
since ah we get we started working with a really strong PR agency and it helped us a lot to secure really good publications really in large and magazines. And ah people read magazines, yes. People read read the trend reports, people read articles with recommendations, where to go, which material to choose. And ah it was also a good surprise for me that the efforts paid off in some of the projects, which could say, yeah, we we saw you on Dizine and Dizine article recommended your new collection and they wanted to get a sample. And wow, it's working. So it's always testing something new. Like, of course, some basic things like newsletters, social media, this is the basic thing which you must have in the current world.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, but it's more to keep the connection going, but it's not the priority channel for you then. And and I think that's that's always the challenge of really finding out to what channel matters most for my own business. Because for every business, it's another channel that works great. But I feel like, especially in the startup world or with young companies, everybody's like, okay, we have to be on Instagram. We have to be on LinkedIn.
00:21:12
Speaker
And that can be a good and good intention and a good channel. But maybe there's another one that is even better. Yeah, you need to understand where is your audience and how you approach it. And it could also be different in different markets. Like we are working now globally and I see Americans, British, Spanish, German people, they're so different. They look for us also in a different way.
00:21:34
Speaker
And also a great example about Instagram, you're saying I have all of the coffee and restaurant places in Vienna. And of course, they are all having their nice Instagram pages. But my favorite coffee place near my house, it's always full. You can never find a real place there. They don't have even a page to tag in Instagram.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah. They don't need it. Yeah. If you're really good, you don't need it. And for lots of companies, like it it creates a huge effort to just be there constantly.
00:22:07
Speaker
and sometimes I also ask myself whether the time could be used in a better way to actually bring people in there. Yeah, true. we we also I see Instagram as 1% or 2% of our business. So we need to have it. We need to publish sometimes something, but we never get customer from there. We don't get any requests. And it's probably my challenge when we are talking and trying to hire people and they say, yes, for Instagram, you need to build a whole team. content created, social media marketing manager, ah designer, photographer. I'm like, okay, but it's only 1% of our marketing. yeah We'll do the rest like ah exhibitions, PR, contacting clients, doing newsletters. Like it's also big. It's a bigger part of the business. I cannot hire five, 10 people just for Instagram, which doesn't create value.
00:23:01
Speaker
It always comes down to the strategy and the audience, which channel makes the most sense. Victoria, do you have any questions for me? No, I wanted to ask you, like you're working in a marketing and you're talking also to large corporates, actually very inspired by the level of companies you're working with.
00:23:19
Speaker
It's a really, I understand that it's really hard to get to them. And especially when you are not a corporate, but a like standalone ah person, you have a really strong ah background. And i wanted to ask you, ah like working yeah with these companies, do you see something that shifts within these five years in doing marketing, what you believe was a must-have and this is how it's like a proper way of doing these things, I don't know, five, seven years ago and what you would not maybe recommend now?
00:23:52
Speaker
So when I started working marketing, 2008, almost 20 years ago, there was a big shift of building an online presence for every kind of company.
00:24:04
Speaker
I started working an advertising agency focused on digital advertising. So my job was also to get a lot of people and brands to actually be present online. And I feel like now...
00:24:17
Speaker
2025, 2026 and the following years, I think that the trend will go into also again building an offline presence because people want to go outside again. People want to meet in real life again. People want to not just be in front of screen all the time. And of course,
00:24:36
Speaker
doesn't apply to everyone. There are lots of people who want to just be online. But if you want to reach as many people as possible and the right people and you want to engage with them also on a deeper level, I think for any brand, it will be super important to start building in real life activities and experiences.
00:24:56
Speaker
Because online will only get you, as you mentioned, it will open a door, but I don't think it will close any kind of deal. And every brand is now online. And you have to be so inspiring, creative, and you have to have a lot of budget to actually continuously be in contact with your audience. Whereas if you go to an event, if you go to those design weeks for you as a company, and you create an experience there that people will actually remember, they will more likely come back to you.
00:25:24
Speaker
So I feel like that's one of the big shifts is move away from anything that is algorithmic media, social media, and more to in real life activities again. And I'm now working on on a couple of projects with clients working on, okay, how can we actually bring the brand identity to life?
00:25:42
Speaker
in another setting. and And it's kind of like coming back to something we already did before, before all of social media. But back then it was more focused on classic media like TV, billboards, still super important.
00:25:55
Speaker
But I feel like this is becoming a new category, this in real life activities, these branded experiences, really. I agree with you. We also see this shift. we were Actually, one of you you were asking about marketing. One of the things which are important to do for us is some ah dinners or gatherings so small with architects. It's like in the small groups, very locally, 10, 15 people are where you build a real connection. And this is this is also marketing. It's not just ah fun part of the business. It's where you invest money, where you plan, what you do with whom you you you make this activity, whom you invite, ah how often do you do this, and how much budget you can allocate. Yeah, true. And but building some community.
Envisioning the Future of Marketing
00:26:42
Speaker
Yes, this has been a pleasure. um i only have one more thing that I want to ask you, which is the three final questions that I always ask anyone here on the show. So um I would ask you for as short of an answer as possible on these three. and Number one is what is good marketing to you in three words?
00:27:02
Speaker
It's meaningful, clear hu and honest. Meaningful, clear and honest. I like that. What do you think is the future of marketing? The future of marketing, I think, is to move from this dopamine era of marketing to ah focus on some comfort, balance in life.
00:27:27
Speaker
So people and companies will talk to your feelings, how you feel using their product, whether you feel comfortable, whether you feel calm as ah yeah people People get tired from being this energized and efficient and need to come back to some stability. And I think this is where a lot of communication and this longevity project, which are now trending, will come to.
00:27:54
Speaker
I couldn't agree more. This dopamine rush, I think, is exhausting for all of us. Our brains are also not built for it. More more people are actually withdrawing from things and just want to...
00:28:05
Speaker
feel clear again in their head and be focused on one thing, this monotasking culture. um And i I can see that in myself, but also with a lot of people that I talk to. So yeah, I'm very much looking forward to feeling things again. True.
00:28:20
Speaker
Final question, a more personal one. What is a book that you would like to recommend here? I actually have two books, which I love to recommend people. The first one is the culture map, Erin Mayer.
00:28:32
Speaker
She was a consultant for large companies, said how to expand and how to enter new markets. And the whole book is built on how people have different mentalities and cultures making decisions, communicate, how do they give feedback? How do they evaluate you? So if you are an international company and you want to enter US market and then you want to enter Asian market and like some Japan it's going to be a complete different way of doing things and way of working with people and for me ah in in my life in my job it's always interesting to understand how people think and how to ah be on the same page with them how to build the communication how to understand them better so this was a really a helpful book for me and I think for everybody who is like now world is So much like no borders, people talk to each other. ah And this it gives a structure of maybe something you already know, something could be new. And another one, if I may, I think this podcast is mostly for entrepreneurs. And most of the entrepreneurs are narcissists. And this is something fragile inside what ah every person has. And that is why we are all building on creating some
00:29:51
Speaker
bigger picture, bigger role. And as there is a book, Fragile People. And it ah helps to learn more about yourself and how this and background of yours could be a strong part, not a weakness in some of the everyday decision-making and work.
00:30:13
Speaker
I love that. So one book about understanding culture and one another one about understanding yourself a little bit bit better. Yes, actually, yes. Thank you so much for sharing this and thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your insights with me. I really appreciate it. And I already look forward to our next in real life coffee chat. Thank you. Thank you, Florian, very much. It was really a pleasure to talk and thank you for the questions. Really interesting conversation.
00:30:38
Speaker
See you soon. Great. See you. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, please forward it to a friend or a colleague. This would mean the world to me as I pour my heart and a lot of energy into producing this podcast with all the brilliant minds that share their perspective here.
00:30:58
Speaker
And if you know the value that a great marketing strategy brings to really connect with your target audience, give me a call or send me a message. I'd love to get to know you and your projects.
00:31:10
Speaker
You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, or through my newsletter, where I write in-depth thought pieces that help you build a successful and exciting marketing strategy.
00:31:21
Speaker
Again, thank you so much for listening. I really look forward to sharing more with you in the future.