Sustainability when shopping with Germander Cottage Crafts

We feel that every business, whether large or small, has a responsibility to their consumers when it comes to climate change and carbon emissions. We want to help our customers to choose what is best for the planet too. By making sustainable choices when shopping for your favourite things, you can help to lower carbon emissions and support small businesses at the same time! Scroll down to read about our greenwash-free approach. 

Here's what we're doing to help keep our carbon footprint under control.

Firstly, what is a carbon footprint? We all have one!

Carbon footprint

the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of the activities of a particular individual, organization, or community.

Who we ship with matters. 

The majority of your orders will be posted with Royal Mail where possible. Royal Mail have "the lowest carbon emissions per parcel of any delivery company" and when you choose more economical delivery such as standard, you are helping to keep the carbon cost down.

Consider saving more urgent delivery options for when it is really, really necessary, such as a forgotten anniversary.

There's no added paper, anywhere. 

You may have noticed that we don't use order summaries or packaging slips inside your parcel. We feel that they are unnecessary as you can check your order contents via your account or email inbox. The extra piece of paper wastes energy, paper and ink. We don't use them. Unless your order is clearly a gift and you have selected gift wrap, we don't use any tissue paper either. Yes, it's pretty and adds that element of it being special but if we want to be sustainable we have to give your goods to you naked. Take us as we are. You'll get a little discount code with our store info on a card and that's it. Sorry, we are minimalists. 

We choose sustainable materials. 

All of the packaging you receive with your parcel will be 100% recyclable material or biodegradable. Our large mailers are made from starch, a bi-product of vegetables. If mailers are not used, we use cardboard or paper packing that has either already been recycled, or can be recycled. Our promise is that every package you receive can be recycled, reused or composted responsibly*.

We'd love to go the extra mile and use up our household recycling too but we'll save the coco pops boxes for kids activities. 

*please note that we still have some stock of small paper mailers with bubble wrap inside. This can be removed easily and reused for entertainment, protecting glassware, Warhammer models or ornaments. 

Consolidation of package drop offs. 

Whilst we understand how exciting it is to anticipate a quick yarn delivery, we have taken steps to reduce the amount of journeys we take to post parcels. 

Parcels are posted no more than three times a week. This is so that we can consolidate the amount of parcels that require a trip to the post office. The post office is not within walking distance, so where a vehicle is required, we send orders in bulk. This means that if you order on a Friday evening, your order may not be shipped until Monday when there are other parcels to ship with it. 

If you have ordered a non tracked letter or large letter sized parcel, they are posted on foot as they go to a postbox. Dispatch times are more frequent for postbox sized parcels and you're helping us to get our daily exercise too!

International shipping and carbon emissions

Whilst we cannot control the sustainability choices of international companies such as USPS or the reality of carbon emissions that come from air travel and air freight, we can lower our carbon footprint by asking you to consider choosing International Economy shipping when ordering from the UK to the US, for example. This means that the package will be shipped as part of a bulk order and will be on a lower frequency delivery schedule. The only difference is that your order could take 2-12 weeks. The average is 2. 

What else are we doing? 

We are currently looking at schemes to help us plant more trees to offset the carbon emissions from our online store. Planting more trees won't save the planet on its own, but it's a great start to controlling carbon emissions. 

We are also asking our suppliers to stop using plastic where possible! Just asking that question can make a big difference. 

Thank you for joining us on our low carbon journey.