Ethical responsibilities

Our commitment

As a team, we are always looking at ways to care for the environment, limit our impact on the planet and give back to local communities and charities.

There are a lot of ways to look and sound ‘environmentally friendly’ but the information on this page is not intended to do that. We want to be transparent about what we do, don’t do, and need to improve on.

We’d love to become a carbon positive company, but we’re aware that the very nature of making our products, and selling them worldwide makes this goal feel somewhat inauthentic, but nevertheless we pledge to work towards this.

Here’s some of the ways we are working towards being a more socially responsible business.

Our Products

FSC 100% Recycled Paper
We use FSC approved, 100% recycled paper stock for the packaging of our metal based products, art prints and company stationery. Mostly we use Shiro Echo paper of which the CO2 emissions it generates in the making are fully offset. Using this recycled paper is more sustainable as it uses less energy, water, and of course, less trees.

Plastic Free Compostable Bags
Our products (excluding some pieces that were produced pre 2020) use a very thin clear PLA bag. This is made from plant based material and is 100% biodegradable if composted. For PLA to biodegrade, it should be disposed of with your compost waste, ideally one that goes to an industrial composting site. Our bags should decompose in home composts but they will take much longer.
Adding this material to your normal trash bin means it will most likely end up in landfill and therefore will not biodegrade as there is no oxygen or heat to breakdown the material.

POS
We help our stockists display our products in-store by offering a point of sale unit. The base is made from sustainable cork and the back is from foamex which is a plastic product, but we use this for its durability and long term use.

Care Cards
The cards in this product have a matt plastic coating which means they cannot be recycled (unless you pull the thin plastic layer off each card). As the cards are to be handled, it is a conscious choice to have this coating applied as it means they will withstand use and last a long time.

Metal
Our metal based products are made from brass and stainless steel, materials known for their strength, durability and resistance to corrosion, so our products will last a lifetime. Metals are widely recycled and it’s thought around 85% of steel and brass is reused.
We live in a world where metals are used in everything, from cars to computers, kettles to key rings, jewellery to hand bags and in our decorative products. There’s no doubt that the mining, smelting and the production of metals has a negative impact on the environment and are huge contributors to global Co2 emissions, amongst other things.

What can we do? We are aiming to calculate the CO2 emissions it takes to produce each metal product we make. It’s a complicated process as we need to look at the entire production span, right from the mining through to the etching. We’re also researching non-metal materials to see if our current range of products can be made from a more earth friendly material.

Shipping & Delivery

Packaging - Reuse, Reduce and Recycle
We only purchase paper and card based packaging (even down to the tape) and given the option, we always choose materials that are recycled. All printed stationery uses 100% recycled paper stock.

We make a concerted effort to reuse all packaging that comes into our studio. This may mean you occasionally find bubble wrap or plastic packaging in your order, and whilst we don’t encourage the use of plastics, we do believe reusing these materials is better than them going into landfill. Anything we can’t reuse is passed to our neighbours, Lush Designs, who use them to package their products, or they are recycled.

Carbon Offsetting
Carbon offsetting is a way to compensate our carbon emissions by investing in projects that help the environment and reduce future CO2 emissions. We ship our products worldwide, which is understandably not good for the planet, so from 2021, we’re calculating the CO2 emissions of our shipments (from factory, to the studio, to stockists) and will make a corresponding contribution to verified climate protection projects, such as wind energy, reforestation, or forestry projects.

We do this via DHL GoGreen and Earthly.org

At the moment, if you order direct from our website or etsy, the CO2 emissions in shipping from our London studio to your address via Standard postal service is not currently offset. We’re working on options for this.

Community

Communal Composting
Composting is such a simple way to reduce and create something useful from our organic waste. We’ve set up a composting bin at our studio and encourage all the businesses and crafts people in our building to use it and compost their bio waste too. In a year's time, we hope to have some usable compost for a vegetable patch!

Annual Charity leave
As a company, we offer our permanent employees three days annual Charity leave; paid time off to volunteer for, or donate to a local charity of their choice.

Charity Donations
From 2021, we pledge to give 3% of our annual profits to charitable causes. In 2020 we proudly supported Lewisham Foodbank and The Make Bank

Ethical Statement
We have a responsibility to our customers, employees, colleagues and suppliers to ensure that the work we do is carried out in an ethical way and under the best possible conditions. This means that all our work is carried out: Lawfully and through fair and honest dealings Without exploitation of the people we employ or deal with Without damaging the environment Under decent, safe and healthy conditions

You can read out full Ethical Statement here.

Design Internships - Coming soon!
We want to help support young people get into the creative industries by offering 3 month paid internship roles to designers of the future. The placement will provide an opportunity to see how a creative business runs, develop critical thinking skills, and learn how to design for production and brand marketing purposes.