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Earth Day 2024

Earth Day Jungle Group

Happy Earth Day everyone! We hope you can take some time today to appreciate the beautiful world around you in whatever way you choose. Also, take a fresh look at this year's theme of Planet vs Plastics, I know I need to revisit my efforts to eliminate them where I can. 

 

Dog spoons, plastic-free packaging

 In this blog I want to focus on the fact that our business relies on the literal earth beneath us, so as we take from it to produce our ceramics, I feel we must do what we can to preserve it.

I was raised in a family of nature lovers and from a young age was taught a lot about birds and plants. Wildlife is my inspiration for everything I make, so obviously I am focused on it's preservation. This is why my main focus in terms of organisations I support is conservation. We do what we can to bring awareness to the plights of the animals that we represent in our ceramics. A percentage of sales from certain collections goes to WeCare Sri Lanka, RSPB, Born Free, and Act for Wildlife charities. The collections that support these charities are our Barklife, Tiger, Puffin, Orangutan and Monkey ranges.

 

Ceramic Tiger Collection by Hannah Turner

But I am also constantly exploring new ways to reduce our environmental impact as a business. I've created a detailed breakdown of my environmental to-do list on the sustainability page of the website, so that you can see how we’re addressing all factors of the business, and what we’ve already done to address the concerns of the SME Climate hub pledge. Read this here

One exciting bit of news last year was that our manufacturer in Sri Lanka are making a huge investment in renewables this year. This will radically improve our carbon footprint. they are buying a new high-tech kiln, and most importantly investing USD 250,000 in a solar roof, it seems like a no-brainer to use some of that amazing sunshine that they get!! They will now generate up to 80% of their own electricity 🌞🌞🌞

A few years ago I started re-evaluating what we do as a business, to make sure I was looking at all aspects and doing what I could to improve. First of all this was daunting, and then I had to try and make it fun, a challenge I could rise to. Luckily there's a lot of help out there now, and I started to create a list, the low-hanging fruit so to speak, that I could start with. It's not as hard as you might think, so I thought I'd write a few suggestions here. I also want to state that we are far from perfect, we still have work to do, focus on this isn't consistent as I have a lot of tasks on my to-do-list every day. But perfectionism can be a big barrier, or fear of appearing to be greenwashing. But we have to start somewhere, we have all seen the floods and record temperatures, we know this is real and we all have to do what we can as quickly as we can.
So here is my list! 
  1. Start by evaluating your carbon foot print
  2. Divest in companies that do harm - change to an ethical bank
  3. Change to an ethical pension provider, check where you put your money
  4. Change utility providers - energy, internet, phone, they all can be ethical choices
  5. Get solar power - I haven't done this yet but it's next on my list! Then you can run an electric vehicle at low cost - win win. 
  6. Make a climate pledge and hold yourself to account
  7. Hold others to account, who do you buy goods from?  Ask them what they are doing to reduce their impact too
  8. Switch suppliers if you don't think they are doing enough
  9. Look at your supply chain and deliveries - choose carbon neutral companies.
  10. Give yourself a pat on the back, or even better, sign up to a company that offsets your carbon you do produce.
All of the above will make a difference, you are sending a signal to companies that the old way of doing business is a thing of the past. As Greta Thunberg said "business as usual" needs to be a thing of the past. Also, most importantly, if you do need to buy something, try to choose to buy from small companies that are trying to do their bit. They might not be perfect, but they are trying, and that really matters!
You can then put this information on your website and help spread the word.
 
Here's a clickable list of organisations that can help:
 
Thanks for reading, we hope you found this blog interesting and most importantly, encouraging! We know that the topic of climate crisis is a hard one to stomach sometimes, but we hope you take some comfort in knowing that we as a business are doing everything we can to make a difference, and we're one amongst many others that are doing the same!
Hannah x

1 comment

  • Kathryn

    hi Hannah, thanks for this post. It’s always heartening to see companies taking these things seriously and putting their thoughts into it. And it helps inspire me when I feel a bit overwhelmed or too small to make a difference with my personal changes. Many thanks.

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