toucanBox Sustainability Policy
toucanBox staff have been collecting their coffee cups since December. All of these cups will be recycled through specialist facilities, but we’re asking our staff to take a #pledgefortheplanet and switch to reusables instead.
Hello, Jenny here! I’m one of the product designers at toucanBox and I’m passionate about sustainability. I wanted to share with you the changes we’re working on as a team to make some big leaps towards improving sustainability at toucanBox. I’m delighted that some of these changes will be hitting our boxes very soon. We’ve decided as a company to make a big pledge for the planet, both for the immediate future and for the next generation of toucanBox crafters, too.
We believe that sustainability should be built into toucanBox’s core values. toucanBox is a child-centred company, started by a teacher and a mum to improve the futures of the next generation. Whilst the ocean continues to be filled with single use plastic, and global warming becomes an increasingly growing issue, we are not comfortable to sit back and thoughtlessly contribute to the problem. We recognised that we were contributing to this damage, and are working hard to undo some of the bad decisions we’ve made in the past. We want to provide great educational experiences for children without causing damage to the planet we are leaving behind for them.
In case you missed it, you can catch up on our recent visit to the Birmingham Packaging Innovation Fair where we went to investigate new materials to replace the remaining plastic currently in our boxes. We are starting by tackling our plastic packaging, as this as it is an item that features in all of our boxes, so replacing this with a more sustainable solution allows us to make the biggest leap towards change quickly.
We’re also making the same changes to our art materials, starting with the items that feature most frequently in our crafts. We’re re-examining what our materials are made out of, and their packaging, such as the plastic handles on our paint brushes and the plastic box used to house our watercolour paints. These items need to go!
Our Sustainability Pledge is at the centre of all of these changes. We want to make sure our decisions help us head in the right direction towards a more environmentally-friendly future. We’re doing our best and working hard to bring the positive changes in as soon as possible, but if you spot anything you think we can do better, please do get in touch. Feel free to drop me a direct email to [email protected].
The toucanBox Sustainability Pledge
toucanBox is committed to leading the craft industry in minimising its impact on the environment and moving towards sustainable practices. We are striving to create a bright future for the next generation.
The key points of our strategy in order to achieve this are to:
- Update our product range to include more sustainable products that can be either composted or recycled at home.
- Work to reduce plastic content wherever possible in our crafts, packaging and warehouse.
- Actively promote recycling both internally and amongst our customers and suppliers.
- Minimise toxic emissions through choosing to avoid air-freight wherever possible and encouraging our staff to travel to work in the most environmentally-friendly ways whenever possible.
- Move away from single use art equipment where possible. We want to provide you with more equipment you can keep and use again and again.
We’re taking a deep breath and being open about the less responsible choices we’ve made in the past, in the hope that we can make a fully sustainable toucanBox in the near future. We will be continuing to share our progress of this journey with you. We hope we’ll have your support and patience whilst we work to make the big positive changes we have planned into a reality.
