Environment & Sustainability
Having a truly ethical business is important to me. For that reason, I am currently looking into the sustainability of my entire process with the help of a consultant. That includes:
The materials I use, and where they come from
- Is the paper and card recycled/ recyclable?
- Is the cotton organic?
- Is the packaging sustainable?
The inks and dyes the printers use
- Are they vegetable-based?
- Do they contain any harmful chemicals?
Whether truly renewable energy is used
- In my own studio when I make my art
- In the printing
- In my website hosting
The delivery
- Is it as efficient as possible?
- What is the carbon footprint?
My banking
- Do they invest ethically?
My consultant has been researching and contacting my suppliers. So far, we are happy to have completed the process for my banking, tea towels, printing and web hosting.
Tea towels
My tea towels are woven and printed using Soil Association-certified organic cotton at a locally owned textile mill in Cornwall.
The cotton used in the tea towels is sourced from India. Organic cotton means that the cotton farmers are not exposed to the harmful, fossil-fuel based pesticides often associated with cotton farming in India. What’s more, they are not reliant on buying genetically modified seeds every year from huge ethically-questionable agri-businesses like Monsanto. Pesticide use and reliance on GM seeds are known to be a huge problem for Indian cotton farmers, so we hope that by using organic cotton we can contribute to an alternative.
Using cotton from India does mean that it is shipped over long distances, which is not ideal. However, it is unfortunately difficult to find organic cotton closer to home. Hopefully that will change in the future - if you know of an organic cotton producer located in Europe, feel free to let us know!
Most of the dyes used at the textile mill are vegetable based and screen-printed by hand, but the colours in some of my more vibrant designs cannot be achieved using these dyes. Instead, my work is digitally printed. While the dye is water based, it is not organic, and neither is the coating that is used to allow the dye to bond to the cotton. I have spoken with the people at the mill, and they are hoping that the technology to print digitally with organic inks will be available soon which will make their processes fully organic.
Printing
In October 2021, I started working with Jump Design & Print. Jump are eco-friendly print experts - they even power their print workshop using renewable energy derived from their solar panelled roof. They are one of the few World Land Trust Carbon Balanced Printers in the UK, they work with Ecologi to offset their employees’ carbon footprint and they are currently in the final stages of becoming a certified B Corp.
Prior to Jump, I worked mainly with Printed.com and WG Baird (for wrapping paper). A lot of my current stock is from these printers, but still printed on recycled paper in almost every case.
My Online Shop
Most of us probably don’t think of websites as being a source of carbon dioxide, but the internet as a whole produces as much carbon as the airline industry. That’s because, when you load a website, it’s not just your computer that is using energy, but also the server that hosts the website.I’m doing a few things to try and reduce the carbon footprint of this website, including using a website host that runs on renewable energy.
You can test how green my website is here:
https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/shop-kateslaterillustration-com/
Packaging
I use only recyclable or re-used packaging. I use paper tape instead of plastic tape to make sure it’s easy for you to recycle everything too!
For my prints I do still use cello sleeves (I ordered far too many a very long time ago!) but when these are used up, I will be switching to a sustainable alternative.
Banking
I bank with Monzo, who are ranked 90/100 by the Good Shopping Guide. They rank banks based on, for example, whether they invest in environmentally destructive industries. See here for more info: https://thegoodshoppingguide.com/subject/ethical-banks-building-societies/