Damir Perkic from BE O bottle is one of Nijmegen’s finest entrepreneurs. His brand BE O stands for a better and sustainable future.
Damir Perkic: ‘Three years ago, I was working in the plastic industry as a business development manager. I found out that there were three big challenges in the plastic industry. First, only 9% of all plastic is recycled. Second, every single minute one truck full of plastic enters the ocean. And third, 99% of plastics is made of petroleum, which results in using more petroleum than the whole aviation industry together. I thought, what if I could become an expert in alternative plastics: bio plastics. So that’s what I did. At first my goal was to change the industry from the company I was working for, but regarding profit motives, they did not want to change their business. So, I quit my job and came up with the idea of BE O.’
Damir has many highlights of his journey as an entrepreneur: ‘I’ve won the entrepreneurial pitching competition in 2018 of Nijmegen, I held a presentation at The Grand Hotel together with Ed Nijpels, I’ve got a lot of nominations for different kinds of awards like ‘100 most innovative companies of the Netherlands’, ‘100 most sustainable young entrepreneurs’, ‘climate awards Accenture’ and more. But the most important thing for me: we already planted 45.000 trees! For every bottle we sell, we plant a tree to create an extra sustainable impact. Sometimes being an entrepreneur can be difficult; sometimes you have moments of doubt. My advice to future entrepreneurs is to gather the right people from the beginning and start with a good base!’
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