About Candella
What we mean when we say sustainable.
A small Melbourne project building the directory we wished existed: a careful, honest guide to the businesses doing sustainability in ways worth knowing about.
What sustainable means here
Sustainable is a word that’s been worked over so much it can mean almost anything. A cafe with a compostable cup might call itself sustainable. So might a fashion brand making 200 collections a year in unnamed factories. The word does heavy lifting on packaging and very little lifting in reality.
So we’ve tried to be specific about what we mean. The businesses on Candella meet at least one of the criteria we’ve published openly. Things like locally made, fair labour, organic sourcing, plastic-free, secondhand-first, or carbon-aware. None of them are perfect. We’re not interested in perfect. We’re interested in businesses making genuine, traceable choices that add up to something better than the default. You’ll see the criteria each business meets on their listing, and you can browse by them if you’re shopping for a specific kind of better.
What you won’t find here are vague claims. We don’t list businesses just because they say they’re sustainable. We list them because something specific is true about how they operate and we’ll tell you what.
The criteria we look for
- Locally Made
- Made in Melbourne or Victoria, with the production happening within Australia. Materials may still be sourced internationally, but the design, manufacturing, or assembly happens close to home. Look for this when you want to support local industry and reduce shipping emissions.Doesn’t mean every input is Australian — it means the making is.
- Organic
- Uses ingredients or materials grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilisers. For food, this often means certified organic by ACO (Australian Certified Organic) or NASAA. For textiles, this typically means GOTS certification or organic cotton sourcing.Doesn’t always mean fully certified — some smaller producers operate to organic standards without paying for certification. Where this is the case, the listing will say so.
- Fair Labour
- Pays workers a living wage and operates in transparent, safe conditions. For Australian-made products, this often means Ethical Clothing Australia accreditation. For internationally-made products, this means Fairtrade certification, B Corp accreditation, or transparent supplier auditing.Doesn’t mean cheap — fair labour costs more, and the price reflects that.
- Plastic-Free / Low-Waste
- Operates with minimal single-use plastic. This includes bring-your-own-container shops, bulk food stores, businesses that have phased out plastic packaging, and producers using compostable or reusable alternatives.Doesn’t always mean zero plastic — it means a real, ongoing effort to reduce or eliminate it.
- Secondhand / Circular
- Sells preloved, vintage, or upcycled goods. Includes consignment stores, vintage boutiques, charity shops, and businesses that take returns for repair or resale.The most reliably sustainable purchase is one that already exists.
- Vegan
- No animal products in the goods sold. For food, this means fully plant-based menus or product ranges. For fashion, this means no leather, wool, silk, fur, or animal-derived dyes.Vegan doesn’t automatically mean low-impact — a vegan polyester jacket isn’t sustainable. And vegan doesn’t mean cruelty-free; some vegan products are still tested on animals. Look for vegan combined with other criteria like cruelty-free or fair labour.
- Cruelty Free
- No animal testing in the production of any goods sold. For beauty and personal care, this often means Choose Cruelty Free or Leaping Bunny certification. For fashion and homewares, it means materials and dyes that haven’t been tested on animals.Different from vegan — a business can be cruelty-free and still sell leather, or vegan and still test on animals. Look for both if both matter to you.
- Female Founded
- Founded by, or co-founded by, women. Listed when the founder publicly identifies as such. This isn’t environmental sustainability — it’s a different kind of ethics, and we list it for the same reason we list everything else: where your money goes matters.Doesn’t mean perfect on every other axis — it means one specific thing about who built the business.
- Carbon-Aware
- Measures, reports on, or actively reduces its carbon footprint. This often means certifications like Climate Active (Australian government-backed carbon-neutral certification) or B Corp. May include businesses powered by renewable energy or with verified offset programs.Doesn’t mean carbon-neutral by default — it means the business is doing the measurement and the work.
- B Corp
- Certified by B Lab as meeting verified standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. B Corp is a rigorous third-party certification, not a self-declared label.One of the most reliable signals on this list.
- Indigenous-Owned
- Owned and operated by Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Listed when the business publicly identifies as such. We don’t infer this — we go by what the business tells us.
- Social Enterprise
- A business with a social mission baked into its operations — typically reinvesting profits into a cause, employing marginalised communities, or operating as a registered not-for-profit. Examples include businesses training young people experiencing homelessness, refugee employment programs, or community co-ops.
How we curate
Every business on Candella has been added by hand. We find them through people we trust, businesses we already shop at, and quiet research on places that don’t necessarily promote themselves loudly. Then we check: do they actually do what they say? Where do their suppliers come from? Are the credentials they claim — B Corp, Climate Active, Ethical Clothing Australia, fair trade certifications — real and current?
If we can verify it, they go in. If we can’t verify it, we ask the business directly. If something feels off, we leave it off. We’d rather have a smaller list of businesses we genuinely stand behind than a big list with question marks attached. The directory grows slowly on purpose.
When a business claims their listing, they can edit their information and add detail we couldn’t find from the outside — supplier stories, certifications, photos, the things only an owner knows. Claimed listings are marked, so you can see who’s been verified by their owner. Either way, every business on this list is here because we put it here, not because they paid to be.
Candella is built in Melbourne, slowly, by people who care about getting this right. If you know a business that should be on here — or you run one — get in touch.