BC entrepreneur prioritizes play and the planet over profits

Written By Peter Allan

Tinka Robev, the co-founder of Victoria, BC's Puzzle Lab, is pictured at the grand opening of the brand's flagship store. Puzzle Lab makes heirloom-quality wood puzzles for adults featuring contemporary artwork by local and Canadian artists. Photo courtesy: Chris Perrier

 

By Patricia Lane & Tinka Robev

Tinka Robev and her co-founder Andrew Azzopardi are fitting together the pieces of running an ethical business creating puzzles made with care for consumers, creatives, workers and the planet. Together they run Victoria, BC’s Puzzle Lab.

Tell us about your projects.

At the surface, we create, manufacture and sell heirloom-quality wood puzzles for adults featuring contemporary artwork by local and Canadian artists. On a deeper level, Puzzle Lab exists to uplift humanity through play, whimsy and an “ethical capitalism” business model that puts the planet and the people ahead of the profit.

When it comes to the planet, we apply a rigorous environmental and climate protection lens to every decision we make. The puzzles are laser cut from a locally-sourced, formaldehyde-free wood product made from sawdust left over from other wood industries in BC. We avoid the use of plastics in our product and packaging and neutralize our shipping through a carbon offset program.

As for the people, we were recently certified as a BC living wage employer, which means we pay our 20 employees far more than the legal minimum wage and last year we paid the artists whose work we feature over $80,000 in royalties.

We don’t advertise online because we don’t feel good about putting our marketing dollars behind a manipulative algorithm and we only send emails when we have something of value to share with our audience.

READ MORE Free to read — no sign-in required.

 
Peter Allan
Previous

Vancouver event planner revels in the challenge of her role
Next

Young leader harnesses AI to help streamline sustainability disclosure