Sustainability

The Lifecycle of a Greeting Card
Sending someone a thoughtfully chosen greeting card is a lovely act that will brighten up the recipient’s day. At the same time, we have to recognise that behind the sending and receiving of a card is a production and supply chain. Here at SixElevenCreations, we are doing everything we can to ensure that the environmental impact of each of our greeting cards is minimised as far as possible, specifically in terms of:

• The packaging we use
• The source of the board (card) that our greeting cards are printed on
• Local based partners
• Recyclable products
• Minimising waste 

Packaging a.k.a. Single Use Plastic
The Greeting Card industry has traditionally packaged each card in its own plastic sleeve. Whilst these sleeves help protect the cards from damage and grubby fingers, we believe the problem of ‘single use’ plastic and plastic waste far outweighs these benefits. These plastic sleeves are generally not recyclable.

We are proud to say we have phased out the use of these plastic sleeves with our retail greeting card orders. We will ship your card to you with the envelope you chose, inside a board-backed protective envelope. In other words you will receive your card naked (of plastic). Find out more about the Naked Cards campaign. 
 
FSC Certified Card and Printing
All our greeting cards and wallprints are printed on fully FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified card stock. This means the products you buy from us are produced from paper that can be traced back to responsibly managed forests, where timber is harvested from trees that are either replaced or allowed to regenerate naturally.  The forest will have designated sections protected entirely, to look after local animals and their habitats. There’s more, FSC managed forests must protect indigenous peoples and hire locals at a decent salary.  We feel good about this and believe you should too. Visit the FSC’s website if you are interested to find out more.
 
When they are not printed in-house, our products are professionally printed by an FSC-accredited printing company. This means that they have to use FSC certified card stock and follow certain guidelines.  They are audited by an independent team every year, to ensure they meet the FSC’s requirements.
 
Local
We don’t see the point of following the principles mentioned above, if we then print our products on the other side of the world and get them shipped thousands of miles to us (card miles doesn’t sound as catchy as food miles but you get the idea!).
 
We use an independent printing company that’s in the same part of the UK as us. We also source all our envelopes and packaging materials locally. This provides the additional benefit of supporting local businesses, which is also important to us. 
 
Recyclable Products
We have made a conscious decision not to use glitter or foil in our products, which means our greeting cards are fully recyclable. We’d like to think our cards are kept as keepsakes but realistically, at some point we’d expect a proportion to be cleared out.  That’s not a problem, as they can be popped straight into the recycling bin.
 
Minimising Waste
Wherever possible, we donate test prints, seconds and old stock to worthy causes such as schools, hospitals or charitable organisations.