Earth Day

What is Earth Day?

Earth Day is an annual event that is officially celebrated on April 22nd, but has expanded to include activities throughout all of April. The aim of Earth Day is to raise awareness about environmental issues and to promote a sustainable and healthy environment for future generations. It was first celebrated in 1970 and is now observed in more than 190 countries around the world.

The theme for Earth Day 2023 is Invest in our Planet, which highlights the importance of dedicating our time, resources, and energy to solving environmental issues and working to continuously improve our impact on the environment.

Both as individuals and as an organisation we play a part in being responsible for the environment we live in. So we felt it fitting this Earth Day, and in alignment with the current Sustainability Edition of our Wood Book, to reflect on what we are doing as an organisation to improve our impact overall as a business.

How are Havwoods continuously improving as a sustainably focused company?

• We have strict policies and auditing processes in place to ensure all our timber is sourced from sustainably managed forests and within each countries illegal logging legislation. To take it even further, we work with third party suppliers such as Cradle to Cradle^® and FSC^® who provide trusted third party sustainability certification.

• We introduced a digital version of our Wood Book catalogue and encourage our clients to switch to digital where possible. 
  Want to switch now? You can sign up here. For those still receiving our printed version, we have now moved to FSC^® paper.

• We introduced recyclable satchels for our Wood Book and samples. Plus changed the packaging of our samples away from a plastic protective wrap to paper hex wrap which is fully recyclable. We plan on taking this further this year! 

• We have made internal changes to reduce our waste and energy consumption, including embracing more electronic documentation rather than printing and switching to LED lights.

• We have developed and implemented Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) - a framework used to assess our performance on various sustainability and ethical issues. It ensures accountability and the implementation of systems and processes to manage our progress on items such as carbon footprint.

Want to get involved in Earth Day?

Here are three ways you can easily contribute to your local environment and support sustainability.

1. Plant a tree or pollinating plant. From this week for a month, we are making this just a bit easier with a bonus plantable postcard given out with every sample order and showroom visit. We selected the Swan River Daisy, a native Australian flowering plant to support local populations of butterflies, bees, and other organisms that are critical to biodiversity.

2. Choose quality products that are built to last so you can reduce future consumption - this can be applied to clothing, toys and of course building materials and finishes.

3. Support suppliers who adhere to illegal logging and sustainable forest management practices. Explore our third party sustainably certified products here.

There are plenty of ways we can all make a difference, find more here. We look forward to continuously working towards a more sustainable future.