Do you work sustainably?
I have deliberately sourced UK based manufacturers for my products.
The giclée printing company I currently use, 'theprintspace', are based in London and have excellent sustainability credentials. They are carbon neutral and offset their carbon emissions via The Gold Standard. You can find out more here.
The fulfillment company I use for my Home and Accessories products section is called Contrado Imaging Ltd. They are also solely based in London and source as many of their materials as possible locally and manufacture all their products here. You can find out more about Contrado's sustainability credentials here.
My cards are printed by another UK art print company who are FSC certified. They work with The Woodland Trust to support our native woodlands and use only carbon captured papers. You can find out more here.
Many of my products and packaging are made with natural materials and, while I will use up current stock rather than wasting it, I will continue to work on sourcing more sustainable options for my packaging where possible in future. For example I am using up my stock of cellophane card covers (which are currently recyclable but not biodegradable) and will replace them with biodegradable ones or maybe none at all if they aren't necessary.
For my artwork, I would prefer not to use acrylic paint, however its properties for printing and painting are difficult to replace. I try to waste as little as possible and minimise the amount that enters the water system. All paints have their problems of course and no paint is entirely environmentally friendly, except perhaps painting with mud and coffee. I have found a great alternative for print-making however called Akua ink, which is soya based. I expect to continue to evolve and experiment with more natural substances as time goes on.
One advantage of working digitally is that light fastness is not necessarily such a problem. I can, for example, use natural inks made from plants to create my papers or finished artwork, and once they are scanned it will no longer matter if the colours are not light-fast as they have been captured digitally to be used to make giclée prints. Then of course, there is the matter of the sustainability of pigment inks used in giclée prints.........and so it goes on.