Questions

Our sister company is called Skwoodle and you can join our Instagram here and find our website here. Skwoodle is all about educating kids on environmental issues (like we do here but specifically to engage kids and get them interested in our natural world), social justice issues, health and more through engaging facts and design. We’ve got thoughtful products for the kids in your life, schools in your area or as gifts. Environmentally friendly and plastic free. We also feature a lot of women we should know which is a favorite segment of ours. Checkout the #skwoodlewomen hashtag!

No. We need top down change (regulation on big businesses to act well, better environmental laws etc) and bottom up change to amend our lifestyles, change what we consume and give to consent to and create pressure on the top. We don’t believe for one second that consumer change is going to shift everything we need to nor that everyone is in the position to do this. Our political and capital systems are complex. Our lives are busy. The richest people and businesses on Earth exert enormous influence over government. Money has been shifted to “philanthropists” who on one hand are doing good (in whatever realm they’ve chosen) and on the other, create a mass of amount of our problems (depressed wages, disease, pollution, climate change, drug addiction etc).

That said, we all consume a lot and many of us do have a responsibility for this. We make choices every day. In this space there is lots of upstream waste too though that consumers (like all of us!) can’t control. We have done our best to reduce this as much as possible whether through making methods, packaging or energy use.

We can create change here. Everything we buy is a vote for something. When a lot of us get together to do this, and pressure companies and government too we can effect huge change. We can choose a little more time than convenience. We can save a little longer for the ethical item. Buying items that help and empower us whilst enslaving and trapping others is never worth it.

We’re so grateful you’re here and potentially supporting our work, switching out your plastics & waste, and utilizing sustainable products that are trying to make as little impact as possible. Each person and home reducing their waste and thoughtfully enjoying their lives means so much to us. Thank you!

We’re conflicted on this one. Ultimately we have chosen to pursue providing it on our site as we don’t think we should be making financial decisions for people, we know that the low/zero waste worlds can feel inaccessible at times and that ethical products can definitely be more expensive so this option is really helpful and helps to make the best choice at the time. We totally get this and are working on implementing it.

We also only sell useful and sustainable products that we’ve done our absolute best on creating small with a low footprint; we’re not selling fast fashion or products made from unethical labor that aren’t sustainable.

These companies do take quite a chunk of the product cost to cover their potential losses and defaults and make a really healthy profit. We have very small profit margins as we produce our goods ethically, we use very expensive fabric in the form of 100% hemp and we’ve really focussed on high quality recyclable & compostable packaging and the likes. In short, we really care so our margins are slim and this makes it harder.

Finally, we believe that these options can be used by businesses to encourage consumption and greatly increase their potential sales which isn’t helping our world.

We thought long and hard about whether to offer this and we hope we can offer it in a way that is helpful to make ethical purchasing easier, and that you make a financially responsible decision that you’re comfortable with. If you have any questions or ideas please feel welcome to email us.

We know we can’t compete with the cheap chains; it’s literally not possible and we don’t try. We make tiny profit margins (we’re in this to educate, research and advocate, definitely not for the money!) so we know why sustainable and ethical goods cost us more. Here it is;

1. Ethical labor isn’t cheap. No matter where you are working. We pay team members in Australia and Europe. That’s expensive. We pay lots of people at our little centre in Cambodia who make most of our products. We pay them above mininum wage. We run training and fund workshops. We want our items to be made with skill and high quality. We also pay for maternity leave cover, health insurance and motor vehicle accident insurance. That’s fair.
2. Most places have crappy working conditions. From our personal funds we paid to renovate our building and create a much better space. Cleaner, more organized, happier, bright, safe and positive. This hasn’t been included in our prices at all but most companies would need to include the cost of it as an overhead if they choose to improve the working conditions of their staff. Also, bills. Always. They’re never ending.
3. We use 100% hemp grown and spun sustainably. Pure hemp is insanely expensive. Way, way more than organic cotton, most linens or conventional cotton. And out of this world compared to polyester fabrics. Wherever possible we don’t want to compromise on our Earth so we choose hemp as it’s the best and recycled fabrics. We keep our prices as low as humanly possible to compete with organic cotton but that makes our margins way smaller than most other businesses in this space. It’s the reason we can’t wholesale our items too.
4. We pay for studio space in the developed world. Not cheap, but necessary. We keep it as minimal as possible but we have a team, computer screens everywhere, and lots and lots of products to sort and store and create beautiful packages from.
5. We pay a helluva lot more to have truly sustainable packaging. We try and used 100% recycled card wherever possible. We use unique recycled items in other places. We use 100% pure hemp as our twine. Compostable sugarcane labels. FSC certified, custom tissue paper. Our kits are made to uplift and beautifully gift. We’re also designers and we don’t believe having ethical, sustainable items means we should miss out on good design. We flex a few of our skills here. Unfortunately we’re not at a scale where we can buy many thousands of each design at a time which would significantly reduce their price. One day we dream we can!
6. Research, research, research. What we do takes so much time but aside from that trying to be certified as a sustainable business is not smooth sailing. Looking at offsetting your carbon emissions accurately is many, many, many calculations away. Becoming partners of environmental organizations isn’t quick. Gaining B-Corp status takes even longer. These are all important business things but they fall outside of our actual work and yet, somehow, they need to get done. And that takes human capital.
7. We’ve been trying to avoid China. It seems like the whole world jumps online and gets their stuff made (or ordered from) China. We have done our utmost best to avoid this. Our stainless steel straws come from China (but they are beautifully engraved in Australia) and two of our custom packages and that’s about it. Everything else is made in our centre in Cambodia, by the team in Australia & Europe or by our suppliers and small business partners across the world from Vietnam to New Zealand to the UK. Our kits are printed in Australia by an awesome team. We absolutely love supporting small businesses that are crafting their own lives and livelihoods for themselves and others and feel so privileged to get to do this.

That’s just the small components related directly to our products. We’re a business so we have plenty of other bills and fees (darn banks!) on top of that. Also, photographers, subscriptions to study papers, consultants and a whole lot more. Running a business isn’t cheap. Running a sustainable business is insanely expensive. We tightened every single belt rung, lived off rice and beans (ha!) and managed to squeeze our beginnings to shop launch in as much humanly possible. We are truly grateful and thankful for having you here.

Nearly all those string bags you see on the market place are made by mass machinery in China. They are knitted and spun using huge machines in manufacturers we have no control over. Some use organic cotton, most use conventional. A mass amount of resources is required to make this all work but it’s done on such a huge scale that prices can be absurdly low.

Our string bags are hand crafted without machinery. They are made from 100% hemp which is significantly more expensive than any cotton. It takes a really long time to make each bag and our crafters are paid ethically in good work conditions. They are really high quality, with skills taught through generations and we hope this is reflected upon your purchase. Thank you for supporting sustainable work like this.

Is there such thing? We do our absolute best with this with 100% hemp from a sustainable, local source and linens and cottons redirected from landfill (so we’re not producing virgin fabrics). We also run our own little centre with all handmade products and no mass machinery or scale so we control our emissions greatly. Even with all this though we still need to transport our items and create some new materials. We’ve reduced our impact as much as possible and are constantly researching and striving to do more. We plan on going carbon neutral to negate our transportation and we are looking to replace a few of the elements of our products. You can read more about that here.