Kate Hall is a young Kiwi educator, content creator and author who inspires others to lead an ethical and joy-filled life through her business Ethically Kate. Just One Thing Waitaki is bringing Kate and her husband Tim to Ōamaru's Harbour Street Collective Cafe on Monday, March 17, to answer questions and share insights from their journey to live more sustainably.

The Waitaki App threw some questions at Kate, while the couple is on a literal journey around the South Island, to find out a bit more about her and her ethos.

Q. Tell me about Ethically Kate - is it a person (you)? A business? A brand? A way of living . . . all of the above?!

Ethically Kate is a business. It is a registered business, Ethically Kate Limited New Zealand, but it has grown out of me and my values. So there isn't a fine line between who Kate Hall is and Ethically Kate is. I'd say you're right, it is all of the above.

Q. What are you hoping to achieve with Ethically Kate?

I'm hoping to make sure - or trying my best to help - people and planet thrive together. That's it in a nutshell. But I do that by instilling joy-filled and positive encouragement and habits around sustainable living so that individuals can feel good, understand that they're part of nature, and also look after themselves.

Q. Have you always had a sustainable approach to life? Or was it more of an "aha" moment . . . and when did it become a business for you?

I grew up with a family of parents who led the way, I guess, with sustainable values. I always had a compost bin, we loved second-hand shopping, my mum hates the malls. I guess in hindsight, as an adult, I've realised we were pretty sustainable as a family, with the stuff that we did.

I had an ‘aha’ moment in 2015, in August, where I watched the documentary The True Cost. It described the fashion industry's impact on people and planet.

I thought, you know, we're all consuming clothes, even if we don't like fashion, we all wear clothes at some point in our days, in our weeks, and I was not okay with participating in a fashion industry that caused so much destruction on people and planet. So that was a really big ‘aha’ moment for me watching that and deciding I would first know who made the garment, what it's made from, that the people who made the garment were treated fairly and all those sorts of things before I purchased it. 

But I think it wasn't just a moment that stood alone, it was potentially an impending moment that was bound to happen. Ethically Kate was registered as a business in 2018, and it has been my full-time business since 2019. 

Kate lives near the ocean and loves to swim every morning. Photo: Supplied

Q. What does your day-to-day look like?

I don't know what a day-to-day looks like for me anymore. I've been house-sitting with my husband since the start of 2023, and every day looks different. But a classic day for me in my normal home - I'm about to have a baby in a few months, so everything is always constantly changing - is I keep my phone on charge in a different room, so I try to spend the first few hours of my day without being connected to a wider online community, to people who aren't in my immediate, and get outdoors. 

I live on the Hibiscus Coast, just north of Auckland, and there are lots of beaches everywhere, so generally that will look like a run, or some yoga, stretching, strength exercise, and going for a swim.

I swim all year round, all through winter as well. I've even swum in Dunedin in the winter, so yeah, I like the cold water. I like the challenge. 

Then I may head to my Limber desk (which is a dynamic desk, I haven't had an office chair since 2019. I'm big on looking after my body and that's all part of sustainable living, I believe) and I will do some emails - every job has emails - create some content that may look like editing a reel I filmed the day before, and writing captions, editing blog posts. 

I often have interviews like this one, or interviews in the form of podcasts, or Zoom calls - consulting with businesses. 

Some days, I go into the city, which is (depending on what mode of transport you take) about an hour and a half to two hours on four different buses, and visit a factory, to create content there, or meet with different people in person, different things like that. My day is always different.

I also do corporate speaking around sustainability. So I can go into workplaces and talk to them and inspire that workplace and those staff members to live and think more sustainably. 

I'm lucky enough to have a flexible job and every day looks different. I try to really prioritise moving throughout my day. Some afternoons I go and pick up my nieces from school, and then I can work in the evenings. So yeah, it's all just a mixture. 

Q. What will you be doing in Ōamaru?

We're just stopping through Ōamaru, so we are pretty much only there for the talk. We're on our way from Dunedin that morning, and we're staying at the Shed and Breakfast, near Waimate, which is an amazing, amazing Air BnB-type place. 

It's a shed that Farmer David, who's a good friend of ours, has built himself, and he reuses and repurposes a whole lot of things. And he has an organic sheep and beef farm, and it's just incredible. 

Q. You are coming here thanks to Just One Thing Waitaki. Can you maybe offer "Just one thing" people could do today, that would help the planet?

One of my main things I encourage people to do is to compost. Generally around 50 percent of a household's waste is compostable and organic matter that can turn into lush soil and be reused, rather than put into a hole in the ground, also known as landfill, where it will not break down because it doesn't have the right elements in there.

Even if a piece of lettuce was in a landfill, it is not going to break down because it doesn't have oxygen and nitrogen and carbon and microorganisms, it's just kind of mummified and landlocked down there. 

Anyway, composting would be great for people to start because also you learn the circular systems of a process, which is a big part of sustainability and a big part of nature. So it's a great first thing that snowballs into others. 

We have all sorts of different composting systems these days. If you're in a tiny little apartment, or you are on a lifestyle block, there are always solutions and ways to compost, which is really great.

Q. Any guilty pleasures you can't give up - even though you know it's not great for the planet?

I have so many guilty pleasures, because I can't always align my values with my actions. Occasionally that will look like a Domino’s salted caramel chocolate mousse, which sounds very radical, and not sustainable - because it's not, but it is a delicious treat.

Q. Anything else you want to add, that you think people should know? Any messages you want to share?

Sustainable living doesn't look like just one way of living and it's not about being strict on yourself or forcing yourself into things or giving up joy - I believe it brings a whole lot more joy and a whole lot more to life, and I hope that comes through.

Ethically Kate (and TIm!) will be at the Harbour Street Collective Cafe on Monday, from 3.30pm to 4.30pm -- register your interest at [email protected].