Digging into the environmental impact of an eco friendly jewelry company

Sundrop Jewelry is an environmentally friendly, sustainable jewelry business, because we use solar energy to melt all our glass. Or so we like to think, anyway.

But is that really true?

We definitely do use solar energy to make all our beads, via a very cool giant magnifying glass.

But what is the real environmental footprint of our jewelry?

Sitting down to think about this, I realized that I know just about nothing about most of what goes into making a Sundrop. What is the impact of manufacturing the different raw materials? What are the costs of getting them here? How much energy goes into shipping and sales?

In fact, the only thing we know is sustainable is the actual bead-melting process. Looking around on the web, it seems like most other eco friendly small businesses haven't figured this out either or at least they're not sharing it with me. I think we need to do better.

If we're going to call ourselves an eco friendly company, we need to figure it out.

I'm starting this blog to share the process of analyzing the environmental footprint of one small product - a pair of Sundrop earrings.

Hopefully this will do a few different things. It will help us find ways to reduce the impact of the stuff we make. And, because many resources and impacts are common to a broad spectrum of products, it should help you find ways to reduce the impact of the stuff you make or buy. Finally, it should be an interesting journey, and I hope it proves an interesting read.

To read all posts in this series, click here.