In celebration of Earth Day 2021 on the 22nd of April, we wanted to outline our ethical efforts in the industry, as well as give you our top tips on how to make small changes in your lifestyle just in time for this world celebration.
How sustainable your lifestyle is is very much determined by your decisions when consuming. Whether that be through food, energy or when purchasing products, consciously making these decisions to meet your own needs, while not compromising the needs of future generations is how you incorporate sustainability into your life. It’s often misconceived as only protecting the environment, and although it is, there are also social and economic resources that we need to take into consideration when making these changes too.
In recent times, you may have seen a shift in most business’s operations. Whether we’re referring to offering paper bags in the place of plastic within retail or we’re looking at McDonald’s who reuse their cooking oil to fuel their delivery trucks, every business is making change to benefit its customers now and in future.
Here at Joshua James, we too go the extra mile to better our operations, allowing us to uphold our promise of quality investments. Continue reading if you’re a consumer who is looking to improve on your buying habits; we’re going to give you tips on how you can become more sustainable, but more importantly, give you insights into how to source ethical jewellery just in time for Earth Day in 2021.
How to Become More Sustainable
Before we move onto sourcing ethical jewellery, there are plenty of resources that exist to guide individuals to a more sustainable lifestyle. Today, we’re going to list a few of our top achievable changes that you can make in your everyday routine that are more impactful than you may think:
1. Eco-Friendly Cosmetic Products
If you’re a woman, chances are you sometimes wear make-up. If that’s the case, what do you take your make-up off with? Cotton pads and cotton wool both have one thing in common: they end up in landfill and take up to 5 months to decompose. By making a small replacement by using a flannel or reusable cotton pad with your make-up remover, that can make for a big change for our environment. This also relates to cosmetic wipes & household cleaning items!
2. Eco-Friendly Toilet Paper
Household items such as toilet & kitchen paper both require mass amounts of trees to be cut down in order to produce them. To be exact, it takes 17 trees and nearly 100,000 litres of water for just a tonne of paper rolls. While this is a necessity, finding brands that use materials such as bamboo to create their paper products are a lot more sustainable.
3. More Walking, Less Driving
Do you live near your workplace? Or is there a closer shop that you can buy your essentials from? By making smarter decisions, and decisions that allow you to walk as opposed to using your car, you are reducing the pollution on the environment and your local culture which offers short and long term benefits. In fact, pollution poisons soil, plants, wildlife and even humans, which makes it sound as serious as it is.
4. Eat Less Meat
But you love a roast, you say? We get it. However, what you might not know is that meat and dairy are the main contributors to greenhouse gasses. From the production to the packaging, this mass industry produces both Nitrous Oxide during the fertilising stage and Methane from livestock digestion. We’re not saying go vegan because even cutting out some meat is enough of an impact!
5. Pack Lightly
Again, another less obvious one is packing lighter. You may enjoy backpacking breaks or going on several holidays abroad each year, especially now that travel restriction lifting is getting closer and while it is inevitable that planes will emit increased amounts of emissions if everyone packed lighter, the less fuel it takes to reach your destination.
Sourcing Ethical Jewellery
Now that you’re aware of what simple areas in your life you can make changes to in order to become more sustainable, it’s time to talk about one last easy step: sourcing your jewellery ethically. This can mean both purchasing jewellery that’s made of recycled materials or jewellery that lasts longer than the costume jewellery that you find in most high street shops.
Here at Joshua James, we make it our endeavours to produce and stock jewellery that we know is a quality investment. While jewellery made from glass and recycled metals offer eco-friendliness, sometimes quality and durability aren’t often met. Finding the balance between quality and ethics is difficult, especially when it comes to affordability. However, we have managed to source brands and our own jewellery line to deliver our customers with hard-wearing jewellery that lasts, while still staying suitable to different budgets.
ChloBo Jewellery
Take for instance, ChloBo. ChloBo jewellery uses only the highest-quality materials while producing conscientious and timeless designs, making for less waste or quick turnover from trends. Being a small business too, they inevitably have lower energy consumption, making for stunning ethical jewellery from the UK.
Thomas Sabo Jewellery
Thomas Sabo jewellery, on the other hand, uses eco-friendly materials such as recycled wood to produce some of their pieces. While this causes 0 harm to the environment, their business also prides itself in heating via geothermal energy and collecting rainwater to reuse.
Nordgreen Watches
Again, Nordgreen watches are very conscious of their sustainable efforts. Having green in their name is no misrepresentation; in fact, for every watch bought, you can choose from several options at checkout that either support the conquering of the climate crisis or the livelihood of countries in poverty. What’s more, every manufacturer of theirs is sustainable.
Joshua James Ethical Jewellery
As our own brand, we ensure that all of our jewellery pieces are to a certain standard that offers longevity and premium quality. Upholding this standard gives our customers the key to a jewellery collection that’ll last for years to come. Without conforming to the latest short-lived trends or stocking pieces that use materials that aren’t durable or authentic, we can always be the one-stop-shop for quality investments.
What’s more, we have partnered up with Trees for the Future. This charitable organisation dedicates its operations to working across 6 areas of Africa in order to tackle climate crises and support families that are living in severe poverty. They do this through rehabilitating farmland, training and empowering families to become more sustainable- leaving them with the skills and knowledge for a brighter future.
We’re using Earth Day 2021 to raise further awareness of Trees for the Future and the incredible work that they do. If you decide to purchase from us this April, every single order allows for one more tree to be planted in an African country in need. Last year we managed to help plant over 70,000 trees, and this year we want to surpass this number.
When purchasing from Joshua James Jewellery, you are given a fully-rounded ethical jewellery brand. From the pieces purchased right through to the distribution, we are always working towards a greener future by reducing our carbon footprint in office and going fully paperless. As a small business, we have the advantage of using less energy but in future, we will make it our mission to continue to explore ways in which we can become more ethically conscious.
In further celebration of Earth Day 2021, we have teamed up with several content creators over on Instagram who are styling up our own jewellery collection in a way that compliments their style and aesthetic. Keep an eye out on our feed and stories if you want to see what our jewellery can do, and why we’re your best bet at premium quality investments.
Check out our Earth Day 2020 post for more history on this extremely important world celebration and for more information on Trees for the Future. Or for more ethical jewellery in London and worldwide, shop our entire site now and make a purchase that keeps on giving!
