Anton Bourtsev, Director of the innovative porcelain tile brand Kaolin, talks to us about passing the principles of sustainability from one generation to another, the need to improve transparency and awareness in the industry - and his hope that, one day, products that aren’t sustainable will be no more.

What is your background and what does your current role in the business entail?

I’m of Russian descent, grew up in Belgium, where I completed a Business Engineering Degree and worked in management consulting. While I was polishing up on my Mandarin I met my wife, Rita, who is of Chinese-Australian descent. Together, we established Kaolin here in Australia, with our family-owned factory based in China. While the factory has been operating for over 25 years, Kaolin has been in Australia for only two years. So we’re a young, family-run business.

That means that, as a director of a business that is growing, I’ve had to be hands-on, and wear many hats.  We have grown so much that we have had to scale up in size and design and move into a new showroom.

What does sustainability mean for you?

For my wife and I, sustainability is something that has been passed on from previous generations. My grandfather used to collect rainwater in the garden, grow food and hand built a sauna - those kinds of things, which seem like common sense, are what sustainability means to me. It has become a bit of a buzzword, but for me - both personally and from a business point of view - it really comes down to common sense and being a father of two boys, simply ensuring we can preserve the beauty of the world around us for future generations.

How did you start your sustainable journey and what challenges have you faced along the way?

It’s always been a given that our products had to be sustainable, and our factory appropriately certified - several months ago we achieved Global Green Tag Level A Certification, which all of our products now carry.

What’s interesting is that from the very beginning, our clients have always been pleasantly surprised by our sustainability credentials – often unexpected, or it didn’t cross their minds to query them. And so, awareness and transparency in the industry are some of the biggest challenges we face when it comes to sustainability. There is still a perception that sustainable materials are expensive, and that you are paying extra for the sustainable profile. The truth, sustainable products are widely available - and not unattainable.

Of course, sustainability is closely tied to the quality of the materials, and the price will reflect that. High quality, sustainable product isn’t likely to be your cheapest option - but it will last longer. So if price is your priority, you might not be able to find a sustainable option. If you are interested in products with a higher quality and longer life span, you will find that a sustainable alternative will cost you about the same.

And then I’d also mention standards and regulators - our products often surpass international quality or sustainability standards by 10 or 20-fold. And standards are, of course, very difficult to change but they should evolve because they have a tremendous impact on whether we have more or less sustainable products. If we have higher standards, we will eliminate products that aren’t sustainable.

What role does sustainability play in your company’s philosophy and business strategy?

Being a family business, our personal philosophy really translates into our business philosophy, and we’re very aware of the fact that the construction industry is one of the greatest contributors to the CO2 emissions - a recent report shows that around 40% of global CO2 emissions come from building operations, materials and construction.

We believe that the construction industry should be as sustainable as possible, and our role in that comes back to the product range we offer - and the way we manufacture it. We're the only company in Australia that offers 100% sustainable and third-party-verified products with all of our products coming from one factory that is certified and green. And that’s a very conscious choice.

And what are your sustainability objectives?

My biggest goal is for people to choose our product because it’s sustainable - and to feel safe in knowing that no matter which product range they go with, they’re in good hands in that respect.

How does Kaolin’s sustainability agenda compare to the competition?

What happens quite a lot in the industry is that brands maintain how sustainable and green they are, but often lack the ability to demonstrate facts and figures to support those claims. We are all about facts. For instance, we offset our CO2 emissions by maintaining and preserving the forest around our factory. So when the CO2 gets emitted, it’s immediately absorbed by the trees. And, as I have already mentioned, our products often exceed the global quality standards.

While some brands may offer a “green” range alongside other, cheaper, or natural stone products - our whole offering is 100% sustainable. This kind of credibility is very important to us, and we feel strongly about backing our sustainability story through factual information and numbers. Sharing these with our potential clients, and educating the potential customers about what is possible within our industry through our own achievements is also a pertinent part of our philosophy.

In the future, what do you think needs to be done? And how do the company's aspirations and ambitions align with that?

The most important thing is that all three major stakeholders - the suppliers and manufacturers, the customers and the regulators - contribute where sustainability is concerned. A more sustainable future doesn’t start with one or the other - it has to be a collective and comprehensive effort.

Suppliers should focus on making the products more sustainable, increase transparency - and make it easy for the customer to choose sustainable products. And customers should be making the effort to ask the right questions, query where products come from, how they’re made – and how they affect the workforce behind them. The regulators, on the other hand, should incentivise the purchase of more sustainable products and - in the construction industry, as an example - mandate the use of a certain amount of sustainable products per project.

When this happens, we generate a self-sustaining cycle where the regulator is incentivising more sustainable choices, the customer wants to buy a sustainable product, therefore the supplier is going to manufacture more sustainable products - and they will become more affordable, and more accessible to all.