The Company


Nature & Kind is a healthy living and sustainable lifestyle company focused on the emerging Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability (LOHAS) market. Nature & Kind creates, markets and distributes, premium quality lifestyle products and services for discerning conscious consumers who purchase products and services that share their values of quality , health, environmental responsibility and social wellbeing. Our Mission Nature & Kind’s mission is to make healthy and sustainable living more accessible, aspirational and affordable whilst making a positive contribution to environmental and cultural heritage conservation.
The Vision

Inspired by the values and principles of ethically minded companies like Body Shop, Patagonia, Wholefoods and Gaim, Andrew’s vision for Nature & Kind is to create a lifestyle consumer brand that defines ‘a way and quality of life’ for its consumers. Consumers by way of purchasing and consuming a Nature & Kind product or service, will associate themselves with a ‘way of life’ that demonstrates a consumers commitment to healthy living, caring and concern for the environment, whilst defining a ‘quality of life’ signifying a consumers desire for uncompromising quality, service, style and value. A core aim of Nature & Kind is for the company and its customers to collectively make a positive difference and contribution, to environmental and cultural heritage conservation. Through every single booking or purchase of a Nature & Kind product of service, 1% of total revenue (not profit) will automatically be donated by Nature & Kind to the Nature & Kind Foundation, with a further 1% being offered to customers to either keep as Kind Points towards their Kind Points loyalty reward programme, or they can choose to match Nature & Kind’s donation at no extra cost to the customer. (I.e. Nature & Kind can potentially donate up to 2% of the total revenue from every booking or purchase).
History

Nature & Kind was founded as a limited company in 2006 by Andrew Harding, an entrepreneur with a vision to create a profitable and sustainable business that made a positive difference to environmental and cultural heritage conservation. However it was the history before 2006 that made the difference. After almost 15 years of launching and managing businesses in the marketing, leisure and recruitment industries, Andrew in 2004 decided to get out of ‘the comfort zone’ and take time out to truly understand what his values, passions and goals were in life. It was during this time, whilst on an adventure through Central America that Andrew had a life changing moment inspired by reading the book Born Free, the fascinating and true story of Elsa, the African lioness raised with loving care, and then, in an incredible turnabout – trained to hunt, stalk and kill so she could return to freedom. Only two pages in, not even past the preface, Andrew experienced what he can only best describe as an “emotional volcano erupting inside” jolting his memory of his childhood passion and energy for conservation, wildlife and the great outdoors, most likely sub consciously suppressed by his every day life and routine in London Rejuvenated and focused from his travels, Andrew was determined to create a new business that combined his newly found and invigorated passions with his commercial skills, knowledge and contacts to create a sustainable, and profitable, business that would also make a positive contribution to environmental and cultural heritage conservation through its success. On his return, Andrew was introduced to Paul Lister, the owner and vision behind Alladale Wilderness Lodge & Wildlife Reserve, a unique and pioneering eco-tourism project in the Scottish Highlands. Inspired by Paul’s vision, passion and energy to create Europe’s first ever, large scale wilderness and wildlife reserve on 50,000 acres of Scottish Highlands, Andrew identified a unique opportunity to get involved and begin living the dream he had been so inspired by reading the book Born Free. Within a few weeks of meeting Paul, Andrew re-located to the wild’s of the Scottish Highlands and set about working with Paul to ‘restore the balance of nature’ in a wilderness area of the Scottish Highlands while bringing prosperity to the region and its community, through investing in conservation and education.’ It was whilst researching the eco-tourism industry, and business planning for Alladale, that Andrew recognised the eco-tourism industry is a very fragmented market, typified by lots of relatively small, privately owned operators, both accommodation and tour operators, with limited marketing budget, struggling to compete against the larger hotel and tour operator groups, for the custom and awareness of the growing market of discerning travellers wanting more authentic and fulfilling ‘experiences’ when on holiday, offering a style of travel that is environmentally and socially responsible, without compromising comfort, service, style and value. Travellers on the other hand, were lacking is a trusted travel planning resource and direct booking solution, which enable them to easily an quickly search for, compare and make direct bookings with the pre-qualified accommodation and tour operators who offered a premium quality, healthy and sustainable travel experience. From these challenges of travel suppliers and needs of travellers came the vision and business opportunity for the Nature & Kind Travel Collection. It was meant to be… 2 years after reading the book Born Free in a hammock of the Pacific coast of Guatemala, and just one year into the Alladale project, Andrew was called by Will Travers, CEO of the Born Free Foundation to arrange a meeting with himself and his mother Virginia McKenna, Founder of the Born Free Foundation and BAFTA award winning actress in London at the Royal Geographic Society to discuss the Alladale project and vision. The combination of having been so inspired by the Born Free story and this chance meeting led to the beginning of a very special relationship between Andrew and the Born Free Foundation, which ultimately led to Andrew appointing the Born Free Foundation as the first beneficiary charity of the Nature & Kind Foundation, with Virginia McKenna applauding the appointment by saying: “‘Nature and Kind are two of my favourite words. The Born Free Foundation, with its philosophy and comparison and kindness to living creatures and its determination to try and protect the natural environment, is thrilled to have been chosen as the company’s first charity. We applaud all of Nature & Kind’s efforts to respect the world and its inhabitants as we travel to see them, and wonder at them’. The history of Nature & Kind is testament to the importance of recognising, and then living by one’s own values, passion and belief.