Our mission is to connect people to plants. We know this leads to healthier people and a healthier planet. But that’s not all we’re doing to take care of Mother Earth.
As a business, we make a million decisions each day — some small and some big — about how we make products and get them into your hands. We approach each of these decisions as an opportunity to learn, improve and do more good than harm to our planet.
Here are a few things we do to show our sustainability philosophy in action.
Choose packaging carefully x 2
We want every Modern Sprout product you choose to be beautiful, functional and sustainable. But we don’t stop there. We also think a ton about the packaging we use to protect and ship that product. We’ve made two significant decisions around packaging you may notice at first glance.
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Avoid plastic-coated paper in packaging. As we’ve learned over our years in product design, sometimes coating is essential to the function of an item. But many times? It’s an aesthetic choice, meaning it might look good but it doesn’t work any better. We do our best to opt for plastic-free paper packaging.
Then we work with suppliers that are willing to help us find better materials. These efforts help keep plastic out of our packaging and out of landfills.
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Use recyclable packing materials. We avoid packing peanuts and bubble wrap when sending our goodies to your homes. When these materials can be reused, we understand that — most of the time — they get thrown out.
Even if it's after you pop all the bubble wrap, it’s not the earth-friendliest of options. Instead, we opt for brown kraft paper. It’s a familiar material, which is great because then more consumers know it can be easily recycled.
Make recycling easy.
There are many, many things that can be recycled but the effort to do so (from cleaning the material to finding a recycling location or facility for drop off) can make it a burden. We consider the ease of recyclability for the average person.
It’s easy to say something “can” be recycled, but we differentiate between what’s possible and what’s likely. If it can’t go in your curbside recycling bin, we think long and hard before adding it to a product.
Prioritize domestic sourcing.
Some items are only available to be sourced overseas. If it’s possible, we opt for domestically sourced materials whenever we can find them. We take a lot of pride and spend a lot of time looking!
Sourcing overseas not only increases carbon emissions from the long distances goods have to travel, but often also requires ordering large quantities of items which can lead to overstocked goods that need to be liquidated or disposed of. By sourcing domestically, we can keep our orders and our carbon footprint smaller.
Ask a ton of questions.
Since we’re not a massive corporation, we don’t necessarily have the clout to force large manufacturers into eco-friendly materials and practices. So, we ask a lot of questions to find partners with our same commitment to protecting the Earth before we place orders.
Sometimes working with these smaller companies costs us more, but if the cost to the planet is less, we’ll take that deal every time. We also welcome questions! Wonder how or why or where we do something? Reach out.
Share what we learn.
You may have noticed we’re an open book. We share what we’re doing and what we’ve learned not only with our customers in the interest of transparency but also with other small businesses in order to help everyone do better.
We know we can’t save the planet alone, so there’s no gate-keeping here. Plus, it’s more fun to do things together! Have a great idea? Share it with us!
The Modern Sprout Team
@modsprout
