Environmental Commitment

It is beyond doubt that human-made climate change is real. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) most recent report cites over 6,000 scientific articles and was prepared by 91 authors and review editors from 40 countries: 97% of climate scientists agree climate change is caused by greenhouse gases released in to the atmosphere by humans.

The IPCC report released on 8 October 2018 showed that the current 1C increase in global warming above pre-industrial levels is already having negative consequences with extreme weather becoming more common, sea levels rising and Arctic ice melting. It stated that “rapid and far-reaching” changes in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport and cities are needed to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. 

I write this Environmental Promise to commit to making we are stardust as environmentally friendly as possible through the areas outlined below. I still have much work to do and this Promise will change over time. It is can be difficult to trace back where and how packaging and paper is made. I am doing my best to limit the impact on we are stardust has on the environment. I welcome feedback.

Agnes Becker
June 2020

Business cards

Business cards are made from recycled cotton T-shirts via Moo.com. Where I need to do more research is whether the process of creating this card is also environmentally friendly – I am struggling to adequately compare the environmental impact of using recycled card (bleaching processes, water used etc.) versus Forestry Stewardship Certified card.

Greetings cards

Greetings cards are made from Forestry Stewardship Certified and 100% recycled Shiro Echo Bright White card from The Imaging Centre. Again, the difficulty is understanding whether 100% recycled card is actually more environmentally friendly than Forestry Stewardship Certified card.

Cards are packaged with ribbon from MacCulloch & Wallis, rather than plastic wrap, as much as possible. How and where the ribbons are produced is something I need to do more research on and it may be possible that there are more environmentally-friendly ribbons I can use. I have tried sourcing hand-dyed ribbon from natural ingredients, however, these are too expensive per meter (and rightly so – they take a long time and skill to make). In the meantime, I truly believe that because the ribbons can be reused, rather than thrown away as a plastic wrapper would be, ribbons are the better option at the moment. It is worth saying, however, that when I do have to use plastic wrappers, e.g. for stockists, the wrap I use is fully recyclable.

Envelopes are made from 100% recycled Kraft paper from UK based Regent Envelopes. Again, I need to do more research into how the paper is produced.

Postage and packaging

Boxes and packaging for wholesale orders are recycled. This I am confident is the best for the environment. I reuse boxes and packaging sent to me by suppliers and try to make it look as good as possible before sending it on to my stockists. I am looking into rolling out recycled envelopes for retail orders too.

I use biodegradable tape from EcoCraft to wrap orders.

Non-bleached tissue paper is used to post orders.

Plastic wrappers are kept to a minimum and are only used on wholesale orders, limited edition prints and original artwork. Where possible these are made from PVA corn starch (the best of a bad bunch of options - they are only biodegradable when processed in specialised processing plants)

UK based suppliers

I use UK based suppliers and bulk buy as much as possible to reduce the carbon footprint from shipping.