A thank you card for the Earth

Christmas-gift-tags The delightful Earth Greetings green Christmas range is in store again this year. Who is the creative person behind this continually evolving brand? Earth Greetings was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 2003, when Heide Hackworth decided to try out a creative business idea publishing her nature-inspired designs on to greeting cards. As she has always been a greenie at heart, she wanted to use environmentally friendly paper and non-toxic printing for her range of recycled greeting cards. At the time of the idea, she had no concept of the challenge ahead in trying to produce an "Earth friendly" product on paper - a product which she was about to discover can cause widespread environmental destruction on a grand scale! Heide thought making a couple of phone calls to find some 100% recycled or alternative fibre paper and a printer would be an easy task. Unfortunately this was not the case. Heide was determined to not to use any paper that had been created in a way that harmed the Earth and soon realised that 100% recycled was not even available in Australia. In 2003, the highest recycled content card stock available in Australia was only 50% recycled, 50% plantation forest fibre. The printer (and the paper supplier) reassured Heide that it was "the most environmentally friendly stock available", after all, it was produced at a mill with numerous environmental accreditations. It also proved difficult for Heide to find printers here in Australia that took her questions about their environmental impact seriously. Eventually, after much research she found a few printers who used vegetable inks exclusively. There are now imported 100% post-consumer waste papers available in Australia. Heide has achieved her mission with her range of environmentally friendly greeting cards, wrapping papers, stationary sets, and a range environmentally friendly Christmas cards. Postscript: On the market now you can find many greeting card choices on recycled paper, but it was not always like that. It is important to remember those that did blaze the trail and make it easier for all that followed. Since Biome began in 2003, we have shared Heide's challenges and know first-hand the resistance we faced in trying to ferret out genuine eco-friendly products. How many times we were told (quite agressively) "you are the first person to have ever asked that", as though we were in the wrong. How things have changed...but with Heide, we celebrate that we were there at the start!
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