Introduction

In today’s world of creating products with relatively short life cycles, mass-producing them in developing countries, sometimes with little regard for environmental and social impact, we would like to offer the customer an alternative choice. We are passionate about managing our business in a manner that is environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable. We believe it’s good business. And we are pleased that our artisans share our vision and support our goals.

Renewable Energy and Energy-Efficient Clays

To produce ceramic tableware, energy is the single largest cost factor. Terra Keramik purchases an eco-friendly mix of energy from the Winterthur Municipal Utility:

• 50% of the energy purchases represents clean, renewable hydropower from domestic sources.
• The other 50% represents energy from a cogeneration plant that produces electricity and steam from municipal waste.

Terra Keramik's clay, imported from Germany, is specially formulated to consume less energy during firing. The clay sinters at a lower temperature (approx. 150 degrees Celsius lower) when fired in the kiln compared to conventional clays, thereby reducing energy consumption by 20%. This results in tangible environmental benefits and lower costs. Firing at the lower temperature also extends the life of the kiln.

Lead and Cadmium-Free Glazes

Terra Keramik creates glazes that contain zero lead and cadmium to produce an absolutely food-safe finish. The FDA does permit trace amounts of lead and cadmium in ceramic tableware, and therefore not all imported tableware is lead and cadmium free. The State Laboratory of Zürich, Switzerland performed an independent test of Terra Keramik’s tableware in September 2006 and the test confirmed zero lead and cadmium. This is not only important for the consumer, but also for the artisans who work with the materials.

Eco-Friendly Packaging

Terra Keramik uses gift boxes manufactured from thin white cardboard that weighs less than one ounce per square foot. The innovative, double-walled construction provides the required strength, stability and protection for our products, and enables us to meet our goals to use recyclable materials and minimize the volume of packaging used.

Lead-Free Crystal Glass

Glasi believes that the addition of lead is not required to achieve qualitatively superior glass, and since at least 1975 works exclusively with lead-free glass. This protects both the artisans who work with the glass as well as consumers who use it in their daily life. Because lead is poisonous, glassmakers who work with lead glass are exposed to the risks of lead poisoning. During the processing of lead glass, poisonous vapors are created and in the grinding shop, the lead dust can enter a worker’s respiratory tracts, including the lungs.

Renewable Energy

The manufacture of glass is dependent on large consumption of energy. Glasi reduces its environmental impact by:

• Operating its glass factory 365 days per year (2 shifts from 5 am to 9 pm), which optimizes the use of energy compared to ramping up and shutting down the kiln and other facilities.
• Recovering hot air emitted from the furnace and re-circulating this hot air back into the furnace.
• Using hot air recovered from within the chimney to heat all Glasi buildings and its water supply.
• Operating a filtering system that collects dust particles and purifies the air. Recovered dust is recycled and injected into the glass mixture.

Café Kultur in Germany uses only premium raw materials to handcraft an eco-friendly product. The tamper handles are made from seasoned hardwood procured from a German timber broker that is certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). The tamper pistons are CNC machined using food-safe stainless steel. To protect the wood handles, only oils that occur naturally in the wood are used (no synthetic stains).

Wood from Responsibly Managed Forests

Café Kultur purchases its wood from a German timber broker that has been trading timber and wood products since 1837 and has been a family owned business for six generations. The broker is certified to meet standards set by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC).

Whenever possible, the broker purchases timber from plantations, state-owned forests and farmer's forests to ensure that the timber is harvested from responsibly management forests. The Forest Stewardship Council is an international organization that promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. FSC accomplishes this objective through the establishment of global standards and the accreditation of independent third-party organizations that can certify forest managers and forest product producers meet FSC standards.

The broker has obtained a chain-of-custody (COC) certificate from an independent certification body that has been accredited by the FSC. COC is the path taken by raw materials from the forest to the consumer, including all successive stages of processing, transformation, manufacturing and distribution. COC certification is the consumer's guarantee that timber and wood products purchased from an FSC certified forest products company meets FSC standards.

Renewable Energy

The timber broker operates a wood-shavings combustion plant that produces all of the energy required to heat the sawmill, kiln-drying chambers, offices and storage facilities. Its dust filtration plant is state-of-the-art and emissions are substantially below limits set by local authorities.

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Recycled Packaging and Paper

In order to save trees, reduce solid waste, conserve water and energy, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, we strive to source and use packaging and paper that is environmentally friendly in several ways. First, we require that our packaging materials are recyclable whenever possible. Second, we will leverage innovative packaging solutions to minimize the volume of packaging materials used. And third, we will strive for up to 100% recycled packaging and paper materials whenever possible.

We use crates constructed from recycled corrugated cardboard to import the handcrafted tableware and glassware from Terra Keramik and Glasi, respectively, in Switzerland. These corrugated cardboard crates provide the required packaging strength, stability and protection for our products, and enable us to meet our goals to use recyclable materials and minimize the volume of packaging used.

We ship all handcrafted products to our customers in corrugated cardboard boxes with approximately 50% recycled content (from post consumer waste). To protect against damage, we pack the products in bubble wrap and use packing peanuts manufactured from starch that are water-soluble and bio-degradable. We also re-cycle starch-based peanuts from the original export packing containers from Switzerland.

We use 100% recycled (from post-consumer waste) digital paper and envelopes. The paper is processed without using chlorine or chlorine compounds (to avoid creating toxic dioxins) and is acid free for archival quality documents.