Sustainability Campaign Review
By Caroline Clarke on June 4th, 2021 · Reading Time: 3 minutes
From the 22nd of April until the 22nd of May 2021, we planted five trees for every review we received across various platforms.
In total, we received 38 new reviews, meaning that Inkthreadable has planted an extra 190 trees! This campaign has taken our total number of trees to 5,221, all in the past two years.
Thank you to all of our fabulous customers for helping us achieve this milestone. Those trees have so far averaged 370.21 tonnes of carbon reduction, which is equivalent to:-
835,253 miles driven in a car
That's the same as driving around the entire planet more than 33 times!
CO2 emissions are the most significant contributor to global warming, with 62% of this coming directly from burning fossil fuels for electricity and vehicles. The US Environmental Protection Agency's carbon emissions calculator estimates that a journey of 2481 miles (3992.7 km) emits 1 tonne of CO2.
By planting trees, we're helping create a carbon sink, allowing the world to absorb CO2, produce more oxygen and cool our atmosphere in the most natural way possible.
258 long distance flights
Imagine flying from London to San Francisco 258 times! A total distance of 5356.0954 miles, or 8,619.80km (calculated using Distance To).
Using the UK government's greenhouse gas report from 2017, a long haul flight emits 0.15119 kg per km of CO2 per person seated in economy class. The total flight emissions for one person is 1303.23 kg (1.3 tonnes).
1,010 m² of sea ice saved
It's only a little compared to the 1.2 trillion tonnes we lose every year, but if enough of us take action, we might just turn this around!
A 2016 research paper published in the Novembers issue of Science Magazine found that the loss of Arctic sea ice had a linear relationship to CO2 emissions. This rate is 3 ± 0.3 square metres per tonne of CO2.
Sea ice is crucial to maintaining our planet's steady temperature and planting trees has a direct impact by absorbing CO2, therefore, slowing the rise in temperature of the earth.
Why plant trees?
We plant trees to reduce our carbon footprint, offsetting some of the carbon emissions caused by our business operations.
As a print on demand service, we're already helping other small businesses make sustainable choices; by having your products made to order, you eliminate waste and reduce the number of shipments needed for a product to reach the customer. The environmental impact of your business with print-on-demand is smaller than the alternatives, but we'll always aim to take sustainability even further.
We know that some unsustainable practices are still involved; we can't determine the electricity that our web servers are running on or force all couriers to use green vehicles (although we hope to see 100% EV deliveries in the future!). Since we can't take direct action against this right now, we choose to offset part of our carbon emissions with Ecologi to give back to the planet that brings us so much every day.
What's best about planting trees is that the carbon reduction will increase every year that those trees are in the ground. But, planting trees is only a way to help sink some of the carbon we already produce. This shouldn't distract from the fact that we need to be creating fewer carbon emissions in the first place, and we'll continue to seek innovative new ways to give back in our aim to become a carbon-neutral company.
Ditch the plastic
A large majority of all plastic ever made still exists and will continue to exist for hundreds of years. We're surrounded by plastic, especially now in the age of eCommerce. Shopping online is effortless and often immensely satisfying, but the consequences on our environment can be massive. Most online orders arrive individually wrapped in plastic, with excessive packaging like bubble wrap and plastic sellotape filling the rest of the box. The impacts of plastic waste are shocking, and as a result, we're now seeing plastic filling our land, spoiling our seas, and poisoning our wildlife.
This problem is growing into an uncontrollable crisis, with several industries still planning to increase their plastic production over the next decade. To eliminate contributing to a culture of plastic waste, we ship 100% of orders in plastic-free, compostable packaging, and have done since 2019.
With climate change and sustainability becoming such a focus of attention in our society (and rightly so), consumers now check a brand's sustainability metrics before shopping. By using Inkthreadable, you can carry our plastic-free promise through to your brand.
How can you get involved?
If you'd like to play a part in making eCommerce more sustainable, you could try some of the following ideas in your own business:
- Register to Ecologi and begin offsetting your personal or commercial carbon footprint. Ecologi also have a Shopify app that enables you to give back by planting trees for every sale automatically!
- Remain transparent about the manufacturing of your products, including the material of the blank garments and decoration.
- Write a sustainability policy for your brand, documenting your goals and the impact you hope to make.
- Communicate your sustainability policy to your customers, encouraging them to change routines and habits in their lifestyles to live a more sustainable lifestyle.
We'd love to know more about your sustainability goals and how you contributed to Earth month. Even the smallest of changes can make a massive difference if there are millions of people following suit. What changes have you made, or are you planning to make, to become more sustainable?
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