A southwest Florida fishing apparel business plants a mangrove for every product sold

By Alex Figares

He was going to be an attorney like his father and grandfather.

But Kyle Rossin’s plans changed when he started selling fishing stickers to Florida Gulf Coast University’s fishing club in 2015.

From stickers, he added hats. Before long, a fishing apparel company evolved: Mang, a company that plants a mangrove tree for every item sold.

Rossin and his twin brother Keith run the business.

“Once we decided we wanted a brand,” Rossin said, “we knew we wanted a green initiative behind it.”

Rossin graduated from FGCU in 2015 with an environmental science degree and started the business with the help of Keith and their mother.

Originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, Rossin said that his mother was always environmentally aware, and she was a big influence on his decision to switch majors and pursue Mang’s “buy one plant one” mission.

“It kind of grew on me,” Rossin said. “I understood that someone needed to start stepping up and battling and educating.”

Since its conception in a two-car garage in Rossin’s mother’s home, Mang has gone from offering stickers to selling 50 different products including fishing shirts, hats and buffs (a piece of fabric used to protect fisherman from the sun).

The company has planted about 30,000 mangroves—in Florida and across the globe—in Madagascar, Mozambique, Honduras and other countries.

“Without mangroves, Florida would be much different today,” Rossin said. Mangroves are a keystone species, providing habitat for birds and fish and filtering the water.

Planting them adds an expense, but Rossin said it’s worth it. And the company received a grant from the Palm Beach County Environmental Resources Management Group to plant them.

“It costs me more money to raise a 10,000-plant mangrove farm,” Rossin said. “It cost money to maintain that as well. It costs to plant, resources for the boats, resources for the people and the man power.”

Rossin isn’t alone in his “buy one, give one” approach. Companies like 4Ocean, Woodchuck and Tom’s do it, too.

What would motivate a business to do this? One answer is climate change.

In 2018, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating the world has 12 years to mitigate climate change.

The UN published an article titled “Seven ways to fix a warming planet,” which listed a set of sustainable developmental goals including climate action, building sustainable cities and sustainable consumption and production.

“I think we are in a small time frame to switch how we consume and how we produce,” Rossin said. “I don’t know if it’s 12 years. Urgency is a thing, but it’s a hard thing to swing.”

Climate change will almost certainly affect the global economy. Businesses need resources to make products, and climate change could threaten those resources.

But because the threats are in some distant future, businesses need incentives to act, said David Kelly, academic director of sustainable business at the University of Miami. He researches business incentives.

“It’s somewhat tricky with climate change,” he said. “Because a lot of benefits are in the future, how much are people willing to pay?”

Kelly said it boils down to the economic concept of cost-benefit analysis, a process in which businesses analyze the costs and benefits of taking certain actions.

According to Kelly, economists can do an analysis of the benefits of reducing greenhouse gases in relation to how sea levels rise, how infrastructure can be moved to be more resilient and engineer more crops to be heat resistant.

“Ultimately, the benefits will be reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “This depends also on what are the alternative energy sources are. Solar winds, what are those costs?”

Kelly said that there has been a shift in recent years called “voluntarily actions” by firms to reduce emissions and be more environmentally friendly.

According to Kelly, 10 years ago only a few firms were making environmentally conscious decisions. Now, 85 percent of firms have made a switch, and it’s mainly because of costs.

For example, fuel is a big expense for airline companies. The airline industry spends about $20 billion in fuel costs alone. By improving its fuel economy, the airline saves money.

But it’s also a branding opportunity, Kelly said. The company can promote itself as environmentally friendly.

That can draw investors, Kelly said. Some investors will invest only in environmentally friendly companies.

So, what does this mean for small business owner?

“A small business owner can’t change the world by themselves,” Kelly said. “If we’re doomed in 10 years, the small business owner can’t solve that problem. But, they can use it as a way as a branding opportunity to be environmentally friendly.”

Rossin said that ecological opportunities are more than a branding opportunity for his company. There are a lot of companies that talk a big game, he said, but don’t have much to show for it.

“I can show a real-world example of an environmentally conscious company that can be profitable,” Rossin said. “Whether people are actually making a difference, I don’t know. But we’re doing our best.”

His goal by 2020 is for Mang to switch to recycled plastics to make many of its products. For now though, he said he’s trying to change the world one mangrove at a time.

“Money doesn’t make you happy, but mangroves do,” Rossin said.