Monique Kelly has always liked a busy life, and this week surely proves it: the nationwide sustainability network she co-founded was launched, and she leaves today (Sunday September 2) for Europe to display the award-winning and innovative chair she has designed with her husband Alex Guichard.

There’s a lot more to Monique than design talent and a passion for sustainability: she’s a lawyer who consults for the United Nations (UN) and has an unusual perspective on sustainability - its foundation in international rights.

Monique and Arna Craig (the brand development manager for Monique and Alex’s business Revology, and the founder of Feverpitch) co-founded ONE New Zealand, which launched in Wanaka on Tuesday evening. ONE is a sustainability framework based on the UN’s sustainable development goals, which Monique hopes can be used by other communities to monitor progress on sustainability and provide information and resources to everyday Kiwis wanting to be more sustainable at home and in business. ONE will also host a sustainability festival in this district in October.

The mission of ONE is to accelerate the understanding that we are one interconnected, diverse economy, community and environment. "If we understand the simple idea that our planet is one system, we can start finding some really innovative ways to make the whole thrive,” Monique says.

Her interest in the issue goes back to her legal studies at Otago University, where papers on international law and human rights piqued her interest. “I’ve always been interested in international law, and a lot of it has to do with rights. I didn’t want to get into corporate law, I really felt this was a space where I was comfortable.”

Monique finished her studies in Auckland (after taking a year out to ski in Canada before “knuckling down”) then moved to France for a year - but after meeting “this lovely man” Alex, stayed for 14 years. The couple lived near Geneva; Alex worked in the composite industry and Monique secured a job as an intern on the legal team of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), under the UN umbrella. That was 2001, and she continues to consult for the organisation.

“The ILO was the first articulation of human rights (in this case focused on workers) on a global level. It’s one of the UN organisations that actually has some teeth - they’re not sharp, but they are there,” Monique says.

While in France, the couple had two children (Romy, now 13, and Carter, 11), and enjoyed their shared interest in design.

Monique, a Southlander from generations of farming stock, grew up creating: she made her own clothes and created art from a young age. If she hadn’t chosen to study law she would have studied design. (She financed some of her studies by selling her original oil paintings).

In Europe she saw many humble bistro chairs, an Austrian invention of 1835. The inventor patented a “totally innovative” way of bending the wood with steam and sold the chairs as kitsets. Monique and Alex wanted to do the same thing with a new material - shaping and moulding it into “something gorgeous”. The result is the Revology chair, a twist on the classic bistro design, made with flax fibre, bio-resin and brass.

“It’s a marriage between Alex’s and my interests, values and expertise,” Monique said. “I’m so proud of what we’ve done.”

The chair is just their first planned product (in design, Monique says, a chair is one of the hardest things to get right, and they can quickly become collector’s items).

“It’s a way of showing sustainability can be not only good for the planet, but also beautiful.”

And while the chair in itself is not going to solve any problems, Monique says, it is “pushing problems to be solved”, such as innovative ways to use natural fibres and the technology to support it.

“We know that we have to think about materials differently. We know we’ve got to go away from fossil fuels and we need to find something else to replace them - because we don’t want to go backwards, we want to go forwards.”

The next product, which Alex is already working on, is a bike. This will solve problems, Monique believes: A beautiful bike made from flax, light enough to be carried up stairs into urban apartments; enabling lighter e-bikes to attract wider use.

The couple’s business, Revology, was set up in 2014, the year they moved to Wanaka to be close to Monique’s parents and give their children a different life to the one they had in France.

Research and development of their chair has been a necessarily slow process, but today Monique and Alex leave for Paris Design Week, where they will have a pop-up store and gallery. Then they will travel to London for the London Design Junction, a similar display. They are planning a limited edition of 1000 chairs, and this trip is to attract orders. Production starts next month.

But despite the demands of the business, Monique “keeps coming back to sustainability” - hence the development of ONE New Zealand.

Monique believes the UN’s sustainable development goals are the first step towards the adoption of environmental rights, the logical evolution from the adoption of economic rights for workers post World War I by the ILO followed by human rights adopted by the UN post World War II.

“It’s an interesting evolution with a crisis at each time - now it’s a climate crisis, but it’s a catalyst for change that’s much more holistic.”

Monique is watching with interest international cases brought by communities against governments, such as young people taking a case to the USA federal court arguing the government isn’t acting on climate change, therefore infringing their human rights.

“We’re going beyond human rights to biosphere rights. We have rights, but the other species on this planet which can’t speak also have a right to exist. It’s recognising we’re part of this system - not just stewards.”

Developing a nationwide sustainability framework and an innovative global business from Wanaka is made possible by the “greater freedom and reach” offered by the internet, Monique says. But Wanaka remains a place where Monique and her family are “grounded”.

“Life is so much simpler, easier and healthier here than in France” she says. “When you’ve got a really busy business life; the support of my parents, and knowing my children are happy and independent is so important.”

PHOTOS: Supplied