Sustainability Statement
As we have grown over the years, we have seen the scale to which a business can create packaging waste. In order to do what we love and bring people the lovely gifts, stationery and accessories that add prettiness & practicality to their lives, we consciously try to minimise waste and opt for better packaging and product choices. Over the last year we’ve seen many of our suppliers switch to plastic free packaging, too, and where switches haven’t yet been made we always ask in pitch emails whether products can be shipped plastic free. Every good choice counts and encourages businesses to steadily opt for the eco-choice throughout the production line.
There are of course still areas where we opt for plastic packaging due to the nature of the product and what is currently available to us. This is usually to protect products from humidity during shipping. We are not trying to greenwash our business with this statement as there are still many areas which can improve, but we know these will become possible eventually through the packaging innovation that is currently happening due to *you guys* demanding businesses to make better choices, and our desire to make them too.
Below you can find a breakdown of what we do. If you have any specific questions, feel free to get in touch with us at hello@sighh.co.uk
FSC Certification
All of our greetings cards use FSC certified paper stock. This means that all materials with this accreditation have been sourced from sustainable, well-maintained forests or recycled materials where possible.
Our branded paper retail packaging supplier is FSC and ISO certified which means they have been monitored and evaluated on their environmental performance from waste to efficient use of resources.
Recycled Materials
All postal packaging is cardboard based with the exception of decal postal tube lids. We have not used bubble wrap or plastic mailing bags for several years now. We never lived out our pink mailing bag dream, but look, there are more important things in the world. Our main postal packaging supplier uses an average of 70% formerly recycled materials to make their boxes.
We seal our postal packaging exclusively with paper tape which can be recycled with the boxes, and orders are protected using PEFC and FSC certified pink paper as an alternative to bubble wrap.
Here’s a fun one: all of our Pink Prints are printed on paper stock made from recycled coffee cups!
The only elements of our packaging which are not paper based/recyclable are the decal tube lids and cello bags which protect desk pads. Greetings cards no longer use cello bags.
Planting trees
Through our desk pad producers, we are part of a scheme to plant trees to offset carbon emissions. So far, we are responsible for planting 127 new trees, offsetting 13T of CO2!
Single-use Plastics
We are transitioning to naked packaging for our greetings cards for all of our restocks and phasing out the bagged stock we do have.
We actively ask our suppliers to use minimal/no plastic packaging in our stock deliveries.
The only single use plastic elements of our packaging are the cello bags which protect desk pads.
Improvements for the future
As we have transitioned the majority of our packaging to better options, we can now shift focus to the products themselves.
We will not be using glitter on greetings cards.
For desk pads we will opt for recycled / FSC certified paper stocks as much as possible while maintaining the desired quality of our items and we are in conversation with our suppliers to achieve this.
We still use cello bags for desk pads however there are other options available which we have trialled. It's our aim to transition to a non plastic option when we find a good quality alternative that protects the product from humidity during storage and shipping.
We know that every good decision counts, especially at the scale of a giftware business and as we grow these good choices become more and more important.
Thank you for reading!