Happy Earth Month! This week on April 22nd is the 51st anniversary of #EarthDay, which means it’s the day to really show the earth some lovin’!
Ethique was founded because we believe business has the power to make positive, long lasting change for people and planet. We believe business can be environmentally sustainable, fair and generous to all people, financially responsible and that profit should not be the single factor upon which we measure success. We do everything we can to operate as ethically and sustainably as possible to make sure that every day is #EarthDay.
There’s a bunch of different ways you can help make positive changes too, from offsetting your carbon, attending in-person or virtual rallies, or (obviously) switching to plastic-free shampoo. We’ve got even more of a reason to celebrate this year here at Ethique, because we’re officially climate positive!
We're proud to be climate positive
There’s a reason to be positive... climate positive! We’re so proud to announce our new ‘Climate Positive’ status which means that we actually offset more carbon than our business emits. To explain a little deeper, it’s a way to compensate for our emissions by funding an equivalent carbon dioxide saving or sequestering (sucking up) project – like renewable energy generation.
So far, just in investment in renewable technology, we’ve saved 1875 tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide). To put that number into perspective, it’s equivalent to around 780 long haul flights, 3,050m² of sea ice saved or a whopping 2,522,185 miles driven in a car. Quite a bit when you think about it like that!
Minimise that carbon
Offsetting isn't a silver bullet, but it does help. We also need to lower our emissions. We are always looking to minimise our carbon footprint in our business operations, through ditching air freight for sea freight and using only renewable energy to power our office and factory. However, most notably, the biggest way we lower emissions, is by helping others lighten their footprint. Because our bars are plastic free, they displace products in a very waste heavy industry. By purchasing one solid shampoo bar for example, you’re saving 3x 350ml single-use plastic bottles from going to landfill. One of our shampoo bars has 8% of the carbon footprint of the equivalent liquid product. The large footprint of bottled products comes primarily from the plastic packaging (150g of carbon dioxide is released just to make one 25g plastic bottle!) versus just 9g for our largest product box. We’re helping the planet simply by selling solid bars!
We also double offset all staff travel emissions and we choose to only travel when absolutely necessary.
One year of planting
We love trees, it’s no joke and alongside our customers, we’ve helped plant over 200,000 trees and mangroves in the last year alone which is an incredible achievement. Our brand new commitment to reach 400,000 trees by the end of 2021 is bold but we’re certain we can get there. That’s where you come in - every order made through our website means one tree or mangrove is planted by the team at Ecologi.
They help other businesses and individuals have a positive impact on the environment through carbon reduction and tree planting. By working with local NGO’s and indigenous groups, they determine where the need is greatest and get to work planting green goodness.
There’s still work to be done
We’re doing our bit, but there are always ways to improve and unfortunately - carbon offsetting isn’t the complete answer. We can’t plant enough trees, mangroves or even rainforests to help keep up with the huge amounts of greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere every single day.
Because of this, we review our emissions annually to ensure we’re continuously looking at where we can improve the business and lower our environmental impact.
Practice #EarthDay, every day
Earth Day may only be celebrated officially once a year (22nd April), but we’re all here living and breathing each and every day – which means we’ve all got lots of work to do. There are loads of ways to make every day #EarthDay – check out some ideas below to help you do good every day:
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Eliminate single-use plastics as they not only contaminate our environment by breaking up into microplastics, but produce a lot of carbon emissions in their production and disposal.
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Stop buying fast fashion, embrace second hand clothing stores and mend clothing if you can. The fashion industry is an enormous contributor to our global carbon emissions.
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Get rid of food waste by composting, upcycling and getting creative with food scraps – put those overripe bananas to good use and make a crowd-pleasing banana cake. Food waste is the top five sources of carbon emissions globally.
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Choose plant-based food and products wherever possible.
It may feel like you’re not making a big difference but start with small changes and you can easily contribute to a bigger, collective impact. You can still do good for the planet every day with a few simple changes or swaps - it’s important to remember that!
Happy Earth Day & Month from the Ethique team
