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Claybrook and the Environment

…Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. W. B. Yeats

When the team at Claybrook first sat down to discuss setting up a business, high on our list of priorities was being as environmentally conscious of our planet and its future as possible. This wasn’t just because it’s nice to have a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) policy; the three-letter acronym often talked about by large companies scared of being shamed. These larger businesses are often the worst offenders when it comes to being kind to the environment, however, we aim for sustainability where possible as it matters to us, and to the planet and our children’s futures.

Here’s a few ways we are trying to tread lightly on the planet we all call home; it’s not exhaustive, we are by no means perfect!

OUR PRODUCTS

Confiserie and Marbleform Basin

 

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future. Robert L. Peters


 

We are proud to be a British business, sourcing both tiles and paints as well as some of the bathroom product from craftsmen and makers within the UK. This enables us to control production and quality as well as getting to know the people and their employees personally. We do also import from other countries outside the UK where tile and bathroom production is a regional speciality, for example northern Italy is a major centre of porcelain production. We visit all of these production facilities worldwide to check that employees are safely working, looked after and not put in danger.

Our paint, made in the north of England by a family firm, has been produced with the highest regard to ecological consciousness. It is very low in VOC’S, the naturally occurring and man-made chemical compounds present in so many modern articles in the home. Once empty the paint cans are also recyclable. We don’t use sample paint pots in glass or metal as these often end up in landfill half full of paint. Instead we use small hand painted sheets of paper to be pinned up for reference.

Our wood flooring is PEFC accredited. This is the world’s leading system for ensuring forests are managed according to social and environmental criteria.

Our MarbleForm baths and basins are produced using an exclusive material. The marble content is a by-product from when tiles are hewn from larger slabs in our production plant. Instead of becoming waste, the left-over smaller marble pieces are refined down to dust. These are then mixed with resins and hand polished for over 60 hours in a multi stage process, forming the elegant bathroom pieces we offer. We feel this approach is better than having a cheap plastic product that is quickly replaced. Claybrook aims to find product that is durable and lasts, not product that seems to have built in obsolescence.

Tiles will stand the test of time. Porcelain, natural stone, and glazed ceramics are all by their very nature longer lasting, unlike carpet or vinyl flooring. Many of our mosaics are made from recycled glass. Our Reclaimed Terracotta from Serbia avoids the discarded roof tiles that we turn into floor tiles ending up destroyed, or in landfill.

We will never move away from selling beautiful products thoughtfully sourced, but will continue to minimise our impact of the planet wherever possible through examining our processes.

Packaging

It's a wrap

Much of our product is boxed in recyclable cardboard. Sometimes in the boxes we use what we refer to as ‘white wotsits’. These are starch chips that are compostable or safely dissolvable in water. We also shred older cardboard to be used as filler in packaging, which is recycled at home by our customers.

Wooden Pallets are collected to be recycled, and all plastics in our warehouse are recycled where possible. We are actively working to reduce this usage further. We do not produce a printed catalogue or magazine of our products. The printed word has its place, but we don’t feel we need to add more paper products into your home that may get discarded after a year or two.

 
THE JOURNAL

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