Blog — 1% for the Planet

We are happy to share during International Women’s Week and Women’s History Month that we have made a donation to Women’s Environmental Network! This donation was made as part of our membership to 1% to the Planet.

Women’s Environmental Network is a feminist and community based charity tackling environmental issues. WEN works on both a local and national scale. Based in London, they have supported residents in disadvantaged areas of the borough of Tower Hamlets for over 20 years. WEN recognises the health and environmental issues caused by industrial food production so helps establish community gardens for growing food and provides plant based cooking classes. They also realise the therapeutic benefits of gardening and cooking so their projects also work to reduce depression, anxiety and stress. One programme supports vulnerable women in refuges across East London, allowing them to build and maintain green spaces, and aiding their recovery and development.

We were particularly interested in WEN’s work defying taboos and educating young people on alternatives to single use plastic based period products. Conventional menstrual products are often filled with toxic chemicals and menstrual pads contain up to 90% plastic. These are frequently flushed causing devastation to our oceans, or they pile up in landfill for thousands of years. WEN promotes reusable and organic options and is also fighting for the 20% tax on period pants to be dropped, as this eco friendly alternative was not included in the abolishment of tampon tax at the beginning of this year.

Climate change will have consequences for everyone but women and people of colour will be impacted the most. 80% of people displaced by climate change are women. Despite this, as with most things, women are not equally included in climate action. The Feminist Green New Deal project addresses this issue by encouraging women’s organisations to engage with environmental issues and the environmental sector to involve a female approach. WEN aims to ensure women, people of colour and other marginalised groups have a say in environmental debates. The Feminist Green New Deal Manifesto will be launched at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in November.

To find out more about WEN please visit their website here. You can support their work by donating, volunteering or becoming a member. Members now enjoy a 15% discount on our website, as well as discounts on other ethical brands.

We had an unusual sale this Black Friday.  I recently read about how the Patagonia clothing brand had given 100% of their sales to environmental causes from Black Friday several years ago.  We thought this was a wonderful idea and we decided to do the same this year.  

I’m delighted to announce that we managed to raise £3536 which we have donated to Avon Needs Trees, an organisation that we’ve been involved with before that is involved in buying land in the Bristol-Avon catchment area for reforesting.

Many, many thanks to all our customers.

Our most recent donation as a member of 1% for the Planet was to the charity Temwa.

Temwa works in one of the world’s poorest countries, in the Nkhata Bay North district of Malawi. Founded in 2003 by Jo Hook and Sophie Elson who are both from Bristol, the charity’s roots are closer to home, and their office is just across the city from our studio. When running a backpackers’ lodge in Usisya, a remote village in Malawi, their friend Lotti Nkhwazi died as a result of AIDS. Lotti had been supporting his sister, brother, and sister-in-law and 15 children who were all drastically impacted by his death. After their experience in Malawi, Jo and Sophie returned to the UK in 2000 to spend the next 3 years fundraising and researching how they could help Malawians like Lotti. They called the charity Temwa, which means the love within a community.

Their community-led approach develops self-sufficiency providing long term sustainable solutions to the problems locals face. Temwa has developed a ten year strategy in partnership with staff, trustees, community members, and local chiefs and government, and at the end of this strategy comes their exit plan. After setting up structures, training and opportunities with these communities, the locals should no longer need Temwa, but will continue to benefit from the initiatives they began.

‘Our mission is to develop self-sufficient communities by supporting projects in education, health, agriculture and forestry, and microfinance.’ Examples of their work include training villagers in the importance of good nutrition and sustainable farming, and promoting young children’s literacy skills and funding students through secondary school.

As our products are mostly paper based, and we aim to minimise our impact on the environment, we are particularly interested in tree planting and combating climate change. Deforestation in Malawi has caused a rise in extreme weather such as droughts and floods. One of Temwa’s projects is carbon balancing. This enables locals to plant trees and enforce forestry management to tackle deforestation and climate change. Tree planting improves soil quality for farming and helps provide resilience to climate shocks, which in turn prevents malnutrition.

To learn more about Temwa, and find out how you can balance your carbon through their tree planting initiative, please visit their website here.

We’ve made another donation as part of our membership of 1% for the Planet, this time to the charity Surfers Against Sewage.

Starting out as a small community of Cornish surfers, this grassroots movement’s initial aim was to improve water quality in a sea polluted with raw sewage. This turned into a nationwide campaign resulting in the UK benefitting from some of the cleanest beaches in Europe.

Whilst pursuing their fight for safe waters and continually monitoring sewage spills on beaches around the UK, the charity has also taken on one of the biggest challenges facing our generation: plastic. They say ‘plastic is the new sewage as it is now the biggest threat to our beaches, our precious marine eco-system and our happiness’. Surfers Against Sewage approaches this by working with communities to prevent single-use plastic, promote recycling and organise thousands of beach cleans.

Plastic is a problem increasingly on our minds here at James Ellis. We’ve been trying to cut back on single-use plastic by adopting alternative packaging and altering our designs. Last September we launched our new Paper Shakies range, reinventing our classic Shakies card to be 100% recyclable and plastic-free.

To find out more about Surfers Against Sewage, and get involved with their crucial work, please visit their website here.