Sustainability


Information instead of greenwash.

We have 3 main areas of carbon use:

Postage, Resources and Energy

Postage:

We have been doing 95% of our shipping with UPS in the past 5 years. We have been shipping >95% Carbon Neutrally for 2 years now through UPS's carbon Neutral Shipment scheme.

Resources:
We only use FSC certified North American tulipwood (Liriodendron tulipifera) to make our fingerboards. This is a common tree of the eastern United States and not to be confused with Brazilian Tulipwood which isn't very sustainable! FSC stands for Forestry Stewardship Council - the FSC will only certify wood if it has come from a responsibly managed forest, or in their own words, if the forest is managed in an "environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable manner".

We also use FSC approved Beech and Sycamore for micros and handholds.  We don't use any rainforest hardwoods. In spite of some being labelled as sustainable, the 200 year growth cycle of many trees (such as Sapele), along with the associated biodiversity loss means that we only feel comfortable using the volumes of wood we do from European and North American managed forests with more traceability.

We also try to recycle as much as we possibly can in the workshop and we package our fingerboards in recyclable cardboard to help our customers to do the same at the other end (which we hope you do).

It is for this reason we try to keep plastic packaging components in our products to a minimum. If your product does contain bubble wrap it will be reused from inbound shipments to our warehouse.

Waste wood is reused where possible in smaller amounts and all our machining dust is compressed into briquettes which can be used in biomass burners. 

Energy:
Unfortunately, running our workshop and machinery 5 days a week takes a lot of energy. However, we do get all our electricity from 100% renewable suppliers (mostly wind farms) which is pretty cool.
Our CNC machines produce so much heat as they run, they are the principle heat source in our factory. This can make things sweaty in the summer months!


Climate change is a real, and enormous problem for everyone. We have always tried to do our bit (albeit in a very, very small way) to minimise our impact on the world. We hope that this is also something that's important to you too! 

 

Extra:

In recent years we have been enjoying working with charitable rivers trusts. These are interesting projects which we feel help tie up any carbon loose ends we may have missed. The UK has one of the lowest forest covers in Europe (10% on average) and experiences frequent flooding. Rivers Trusts are trying to address both issues (and also create better habitats for critters) by planting in key watershed areas. 

In 2018 we donated £6000 to tree planting in the Yorkshire Dales.

In 2020 and 2021 we worked with Lancashire rivers trust on a similar sized project. More details to follow...