Planting the seed
Few know that before we were known as Rescript, our humble beginnings took root in the form of Bunpai. When we were fresh out of college, our internship experience showed us the tremendous and seemingly endless business opportunities present and we came up with numerous business plans in the sustainable space, none of which came to be as we lacked resources. Three years after graduation, when we caught up over a cup of filter coffee we reminisced our business plans, this nostalgia drove us to take a plunge and take the first step to form a company, called Bunpai (derived from the word 'distribution' in Japanese), and took a leap of faith. Sensing an opportunity in the corporate gifting space, we sought to explore and curated a few gifting options for companies like Infosys, SAP and EY.
Growth
As time passed, our business grew and we slowly learned the ins and outs of corporate gifting. A typical day in our lives at Bunpai involved speaking to vendors, getting a good deal, procuring raw materials and supplying them to our customers. While this slowly turned into a routine, we started to notice some patterns.
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Gifting is a growing business - We noticed that as companies grew, it came to be somewhat of a norm to procure and distribute gifts to their employees as a symbol of fellowship and support
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Most corporate gifting is not sustainable - The more we procured raw materials to turn into corporate gifts, the more we realized how unsustainable regular corporate gifting really is, considering the scale at which it is done
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Gifting is here to stay - Despite the pandemic and its implications on offices and the way that they function, gifting is here to stay. In almost every medium to large company, giving employees a welcome kit upon joining is the norm.
A crossroads
We like to look at our journey so far from two different perspectives. One is the lens described above, where we, as young entrepreneurs, grew along with our businesses. However, there was another side to this. In the background, thoughts were looming in our minds about the state of the planet and how corporate gifting would impact existing ecological problems.
With the calls for policy reforms to mitigate climate change getting louder than ever before, we realized that we had to do something. It was hard to ignore when summers are hotter, rains are heavier and seasons are more unpredictable with every passing year. We could no longer continue to function in the dissonance of knowing that the planet is suffering at the expense of unchecked growth.
Eventually, this niggling thought slowly grew into a loud and persistent feeling that we could not shake off. Our consciences were affected, and we knew that if something was going to be done about the state of our planet, we would have to lead the change as young entrepreneurs.
The middle ground
At this crucial juncture, we realized that we could continue with our business if we took it upon ourselves to pivot and make it about a cause that can help the future of the planet. That's when Rescript was born, and we made the challenging decision to shift from corporate gifting to being pioneers of the recycled paper business in India - an industry that we think is only in its infancy. Making this shift was fraught with uncertainty and the anxieties associated with not knowing whether we were making the right decision - but we chose to trust our instincts and guts. We know that we wanted to leave the planet a better place than it was when we were born.
Rescript today
Fast forward to the present, and Rescript is now a recognizable brand in stationery shops around the country. Not only are we changing the narrative around the sustainability of corporate gifting, but we are also completely redefining the way people perceive copier paper and student notebooks. By developing a product that could perform just as well as virgin paper without the environmental cost, we were able to disrupt the very rationale behind why someone might want to purchase and use virgin paper.
While we’re well on our way to achieving our goals of saving water, trees and lowering our overall carbon footprint, we’re aware that this is just the beginning. As we inch towards our goals, we’re slowly starting to see that this is just the start of something much bigger than helping the public switch to recycled paper. We don’t know what the future holds for us, but we have an unwavering belief in our own mission as individuals, and as a business. Recycled paper and stationery are only the first steps that will allow us to #RescriptTheFuture.
