Cero — Natalia Ramírez

Social Entrepreneurship Creative Direction Educational Platform

Cero: Towards a healthier community and a more sustainable Earth

Cero is Panama’s first zero-waste store specializing in local, package-free foods and home goods.

We offer circular alternatives for everyday products through a model that integrates environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and prioritizes human and planetary health. By spotlighting local organic farmers, artisans and entrepreneurs, our store functions as a pipeline for conscious consumption—supporting community-driven local economies, reducing waste at the source, and reconnecting people with the origins of what they consume.

Cero hosts La Colmena, Panama’s first zero-waste farmer’s market, where we cultivate community spaces in support of local farmers, food artisans and entrepreneurs.

2019–2023
Co-Founder, Creative + Communication Director
with Carolina Conte, Co-Founder + Food, Agriculture and Sustainability Director
Instagram

Cero: zero waste, zero chemicals, zero kilometers. We’re redesigning a circular consumption chain to exclude materials and processes that heat the planet and harm human health.

Environmental and Interior Design

“Compra Desnudo” (“Shop Naked”) is a phrase coined to promote package-free shopping. We encouraged clients to bring their own bags and jars to refill bulk goods, and products like our locally-made shampoo and conditioner bars were sold without packaging (naked).

“Everything Cero offers is good for you and the planet. Each of our products passes through a rigorous sustainability filter—considering social, environmental and economic impact. We do that work so that you don’t have to.”

Art Direction

Photos by Val Schnack and Andrés Felipe Vargas

All of the food products offered at Cero are grown locally by small organic farmers, our line of beauty and body care items is entirely handcrafted by local women artisans, and all imported products are held to the highest standard of sustainable production.

Packaging, Art Direction

Collaboration with local coffee shop Café Unido
Photos by Andrés Felipe Vargas

Café Unido is the first local coffee shop that played a role in putting specialty Panamanian coffee on the map for Panamanians. Our collaborative specialty coffee box included bulk coffee beans toasted at Café Unido and that could be refilled at Cero, as well as a reusable “Reduce, Refill, Reconnect” coffee mug that, when used any Café Unido location, unlocked a refill discount.

Art Directionwith Andrés Felipe Vargas

“Circular is Natural” is a visual exploration of sustainable thinking as a return to origin. This video campaign reframes circular living as something deeply intuitive, perfectly designed in the natural world. A circular lifestyle mirrors circular ecosystems and asks us to think about designing human systems in harmony with the world we’re a part of.

Cero taught me that farmers are the backbone of our food systems, and that a sustainable future starts with how we eat. The people I met along the journey through Cero are changing the way that we eat, and reminding us that this “change” is a return to an origin—one where people and planet come first, and where food is the center of life, health and community.
This new worldview brought to life my next project: Sobremesa.

More Projects

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