An on-going theme in my life, and my studio, is a deep-rooted connection to nature. In the last blog post, I wrote about how I am making efforts to reduce my environmental impact during production, but part of bringing my work to people’s homes is having to post the product! Let’s have a look at what I do to combat the environmental costs of postage & packaging.
Packaging My rule with packaging is that it has to be reused, recycled or recyclable. A lot of my bubble wrap is reused from other small business in Lancaster such as Holm and Gabriella at The Artisan Bazaar. My students and workshop participants often bring me bubble wrap too, which we end up using over and over again, and I’d really encourage any who purchase my products to also reuse the packaging where possible!
Some of the packaging I currently use - - the bubble wrap, void filler and packaging chips are all donated
Iuse the smallest possible box – which saves space in trucks & planes. This reduces emissions, because more packages can be sent in a single journey. The majority of my parcels are sent with Royal Mail, who have the lowest reported carbon emissions per parcel of any major UK delivery company. They collect the parcels from my studio when they are already out on delivery (which often saves a trip in a car).
River Ribble My love of nature is my motivation to both care for, and prosper the environment. This is why for all items sold through my website, I make a donation to the Ribble River Trust: an incredible non-profit Lancashire charity aiming to improve, promote and protect the River Ribble. Recently, they partnered with the Woodland Trust to plant an additional 20 hectares of new woodland in the Ribble area each year. This will be amazing in aiding the increase and nurturing of local wildlife populations. The increase of woodland will also act as a natural flood management (something I think all Lancastrians can agree is needed!) Trees are also a great way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and through the Woodland Trust partnering, they predict that up to 100,000 tonnes of CO2 will be removed!
https://ribbletrust.org.uk/about-us/
Climeworks As you can imagine there is a far greater environmental impact attached with international deliveries, so the postage cost for these orders includes a carbon offset donation (£5/£10 for Europe/Rest of world respectively), which I send on to Climeworks. Climeworks is a pioneer organisation for ‘direct air capture’ technology. They physically remove CO2 out of the atmosphere and then store it underground in rocks (it gets very scientific!) It is one of the most permanent methods of removing and storing CO2, which is why I think this is such a great organisation to support.
If you are interested in learning more please do click through the links included in this blog, and continue to send through comments & questions to hello@raeceramics.co.uk. Do remember that when it comes to reducing environmental impact, much like art, it’s not about perfect inaction, but imperfect action!
Next time, we’ll get a beginner’s-eye-view into making a slab building a mug – a guest feature from my summer intern Micky!
Rae x
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