Being formed to help sustain our wildlife, we are committed to ensuring every step we take is sustainable However, I've only now realised we never spent much time explaining how The Gaia Collection prioritises sustainability... let's take the time to talk about it now. 

First up let's start with the designs, all our earrings design feature  (all hand-designed by me!) different endangered species from around Aotearoa, but specifically different species that are lesser know.  With more awareness being brought to these different species, it means that more change can occur for them. Overall The Gaia Collection hopes that everyone will start to take steps towards helping sustain these and other species. 

Then is the production of our earrings themselves. All our earrings are laser cut and engraved by Abstract Designs. A small laser cutting business based in Petone with a shop in the Wellington CBD (Check them out here!)  Being a small business ourselves we thought it was incredibly important to work with other small businesses and by working with Abstract Designs I’ve been able to learn so much from them and hope they too have learnt something from me too! All of the wood that they and in turn, The Gaia Collection, use is sustainably sourced MDF from another small business based in Nelson. 

Next, moving on to the earring cards, these are the cards that the earrings come with and tell you about us and the species. I’ve personally designed these cards but they are then printed by Apex Print, yet another small business based in Petone. These cards are made from recycled paper that can be further recycled and have water-based ink (meaning if it gets into nature it won’t cause any harm!).

Now, here's a bit of honesty… One of the only parts of The Gaia Collection that isn’t fully sustainable is our earring hooks. These are sourced from Amazon because at the moment in Aotearoa there just isn’t anywhere where these can be purchased affordably (we’re looking at $5+ per hook!).  However, I’d like to say everything else we do makes up for this.

Once the earrings have been assembled and you purchase them they will be packed into a brown paper bag. This provides padding for postage but none of the plastic that is bubble wrap. 

This then goes into the NZPost’s packing slips that are made from 80% recycled plastic and are carbon-neutral delivery and are sent straight to your door! 

I hope this gives a bit more insight into how The Gaia Collection tries to make every step a sustainable one!