Eco Pom

Hello! If you’re on this page, you’ll be wanting to know all about Pom Pom’s commitment to being as eco-friendly as possible, so let’s tell you! As a knitting and crochet magazine, we celebrate and encourage slow and environmentally-friendly fashion. This is a principle we take seriously and extend to other parts of our business, including printing, packaging, shipping, how we operate PPHQ, and travel. 

We have an ongoing dedication to carbon neutrality. We haven’t reached our dream of being carbon neutral just yet, but it’s a factor in every decision we make. Here’s what we’ve done so far to edge us closer to our goal!

Our publications

Our quarterly magazine is printed in the UK by Park Communications. In the past, we've use 100% vegetable oil based inks on paper containing 100% virgin fibre sourced from well-managed, responsible, FSC certified forests. However, from Issue 38 onwards PPQ will be printed on 100% recycled FSC® certified paper! 

Our books are printed by Pureprint Group Limited, who ensure our publications are carbon balanced with the World Land Trust. They were the first ever carbon neutral printer in the world back in 2002, too! 

Packaging

We spend a lot of time researching which packaging is best for Pom products. We always aim for our packaging to be as low impact as possible, made from recycled materials, be recyclable itself, and to contain low amounts of (but preferably zero) plastics. 

All of our publications come lovingly packaged in a paper wrap. The reason we do this is to prevent damage to the magazine or book during the shipping process. This is beneficial because it means fewer magazines are returned to us (and therefore wasted) as damaged copies and we require less shipping. Making the paper wrap pretty is just for fun! Our customers often re-purpose Pom Pom magazine wraps by using them in other crafts or as wrapping paper. Just think of a hand-knitted gift parcelled in one of our magazine wraps! 😍

Our ‘Pomfetti’ envelopes are what we use when sending single or double magazine retail orders. We order these from Lil Packaging and they are 100% biodegradable, use eco-friendly inks, are plastic-free, and ocean-friendly! 

For larger orders (3+ mags or a book), we use bulk wrap book packaging. The foldable edges and cardboard wrap-around flap keep the publications snug, reducing movement while the package is in transition, and therefore reducing damage. We order C2 and C3-sized packaging from Lil Packaging, whose book wraps are 100% recyclable and FSC certified. 

The paper wraps we mention above are sealed with a Pom Pom-branded sticker. A specific publication, such as one from the Interpretations series, the Knitting Outside the Box series, and Knit How, will also have its own unique sticker. We’re now ordering our customised stickers from Alocalprinter, who use eco-friendly toners and chlorine-free labels. Although we have some sticker stock from older publications which aren’t manufactured in this way, we’ll be replacing them with the more eco-friendly stickers when the time comes. 

Sometimes it’s necessary to brand our packages so that our couriers can easily identify them. We often use Pom Pom stamps for this. We get the ink from The English Stamp Company, and we like them because you can get ink refills from them! 

We use self-adhesive paper tape to seal the large boxes of books and magazines that we send internationally. We source this tape from Raja, and the tape is 100% recyclable. 

To ensure the safe journey of hardback books from our studio to your home, we wrap them in bubble wrap to prevent the corners from getting pushed in. We use Raja’s 50% recycled bubble wrap, meaning that half of the materials used to make the bubble wrap have been recycled. The bubble wrap itself is also recyclable. 

When new publications are delivered to our studio, they arrive in cardboard boxes. Trust us when we say that there are many of them! We re-use these boxes when we’re sending publications to wholesalers in bulk. Sometimes we have cardboard boxes spare after this. If so, we give them to Clay Collective,  the ceramics business in the studio next to ours, who re-use them for their shipments. 

There are some elements of our packaging which are gift-set specific, including the striped paper bags and the protective paper. We order our stripey, sweet shop-style bags from Polybags and these are 100% recyclable. For products such as the Knit How gift sets, which contain several elements, we wrap them in protective paper. We buy this paper from Raja. The paper itself is recycled and is recyclable. 

 

Shipping

Where possible we use DHL’s Go Green service. This ensures that our shipments are CO2  neutral because DHL makes a contribution to a climate change protection project through the purchase of carbon credits for the same amount of emissions our shipment generated.  

Pom Pom Offices

We clean our studios ourselves, so we know exactly which products are used to make our workplaces sparkle! The UK Pom team favour products by Ecover and Method, both of which are eco-conscious and cruelty-free brands.  

We’re lucky enough to have a sink in our London studio and we’re fortunate enough to have a local refill shop, Re:Store, very close by. When we run out of hand soap, we simply pop over to the local refill shop who fill our container up with more. It’s also really handy when we want to top up on dry goods (pasta, grains, and rice) on the way home from work! 

We adhere to Hackney Downs Studios’ recycling policy. They have separate points for general waste, mixed recycling (paper, card, plastics, glass, metal, tins and cans), cardboard recycling, and food waste bins. There’s also a recycling point at their front of house for batteries, light bulbs, and toner inks. 

Pom Staff

When we’re not working from home, all those who are able to either walk to the studio, cycle, or use public transport. 

We have an office in London UK and an office in Austin USA, so international travel is sometimes necessary, particularly for a photoshoot. Such long-distance travel is not a decision we undertake lightly, and we only do this when it’s needed. International travel is somewhat out of the question at the moment, but when we can safely undertake international travel again, we will look into schemes which will help us to offset the impact of our business travel.