I had always been proud of Star Editions’ Made in the UK tag line. To me, it implied so much more than championing great British manufacturing.
By definition, our Proudly Made in the UK seal of approval, means that every product we produce has a far lower carbon cost, and so for our customers, they are being greener by not buying made in China alternatives.
But what once filled me with pride, has been diminished with every climate change backwards step. I am ashamed about what I thought was greener, in years gone by, was never green enough? It begs the question - How green is green enough?
Time To Change
The gift industry as a whole is thankfully trying to promote greener products, greener processes, and greener technologies. More importantly as a society, we are raising awareness so that people are choosing to adopt a green lifestyle and green consumerism (an oxymoron I know), to shrink our ecological footprint - but it's easier said than done.
Star Editions’ own FSC accreditation still means something surely, but isn’t this just the bare minimum now? Many would argue that the terminology of green or sustainable needs to be changed to regenerative. Simply changing what we do without regenerating what has been depleted is not going to make a difference.
With this in mind, 2019 has seen a lot of changes for Star Editions – in short we’ve switched mind-sets and we are inviting ALL our customers and indeed competitors to do the same.
Rather than aiming for greener alternatives, Star Editions believe we should all be offering greenest alternatives. The greenest alternatives to pre-existing products - the GREENEST available base product or material that we print on and turn into products.
We Strive To Be Greener
For our T-shirt Printing we now stock (and recommend) Earth Positive garments – all organic and ethically made, but crucially, manufactured solely using sustainable energy generated from wind and solar power. For our cotton rolls of fabric, which we print and turn into Tea Towels, Aprons, tote bags and so much more – we offer unbleached, but also 100% organic cotton as the greenest alternative. We now recycle 100% of all off-cut fabric and paper waste - and when it comes to packaging we have cello-bag free alternatives for all our products and 100% degradable options where available.
It needs to be an industry wide change to make a difference and it needs to be adopted industry wide to bring the cost of the greenest alternatives much more in-line with customer expectations.
It’s why Star Editions are already in the 18 week process of becoming a Fair Wear member. It’s why we now work with Offset Earth to plant 500 trees every month (50 tonnes of CO2 removed per month). And why we are all looking forward to the first Star Editions Earth Day 2020, where we will completely shut off production and power down for 24 hours, so that the team can plant trees all day in person. We’ve got a long, long way to go, but Star Editions are reinventing the way products are designed and manufactured by shifting our own business model, all to benefit change in consumer perceptions – and I’m not ashamed to say it, I’ve never felt prouder!
Will Marston - CEO