Our Eco Promise

We are a team of environmentalists.

We promise to always do our best to leave a net positive impact on the planet with 1 Tree Cards.

We look at every step and aspect of our business to make sure it aligns with our earth friendly values.

Tree planting, raising awareness of declining bee populations, using 100% recycled card, vegan inks and offering plastic free cards are all ways in which we are striving to make this world a better place.

If you have any ideas or suggestions on how we can up our eco game, drop us a line, we’re constantly learning about new eco initiatives to help us be the best we can be.

Recycled Cards

Our cards are printed in the UK on 100% recycled FSC certified and fully-traceable material from within the EU. It’s carbon balanced and has the highest WWF ‘Check your Paper’ rating.

No trees are cut down in the making of our cards. We believe using recycled paper/card is important both for businesses and consumers so that our waste has somewhere useful (and beautiful!) to go.

At the moment, just 10% of the UK’s paper products come from recycled materials and we want to be part of the change that sees this figure increase. In the past, the UK was shipping most of it’s waste paper to China to be recycled. As they have now restricted the amount we can send, it is even more important for us to find uses for our recycled paper products.

To avoid chemical bleaching, we have opted for card that is not bright white. Some cards may have tiny flecks that are barely noticeable and add to the natural feel of our cards.

All of our cards are also 100% recyclable, so recipients can pop them in their mixed paper waste so they can have yet another new life. They don’t even have to worry about removing the seed token label inside, that is fully recyclable too and is made from 100% recycled material.

Eco Printing

Our printer is one of the most eco conscious out there and all of our printing is done using renewable energy.

We only use vegan inks to print our cards and we avoid the use of foil, glitter and other products that can make cards difficult or impossible to recyclable.

We use vegetable based inks when printing large quantities using litho printers and for smaller quantities we use the most eco friendly digital methods.

Compostable Sleeves

We encourage all of our retail partners to opt for the natural look (by offering a discount) but understand that plastic sleeves are the industry standard so we want to offer an alternative to these.

Our biodegradable/compostable display sleeves look just like their plastic, polypropylene counterparts, but are made with corn and potato starch here in the UK. They can be composted commercially and will break down into compost in around 45 days. They can also be composted at home, they just take longer to fully break down. If not composted, they will eventually break down into Co2, water and biomass.

While our sleeves are not perfect (they are still single-use and require resources to manufacture them), they will eventually break down and do not leach microplastics. They should not be confused with oxo-degradable bio-plastics which do degrade but only into smaller particles of plastic. We believe our sleeves are currently the most eco-friendly option on the market; we are amazed at how great they look and so are our retailers!

The sticker on each sleeve is also fully compostable so there’s no need to do any separating – the sleeve and sticker can be thrown in the compost together. 

Tree Planting

We plant a tree for every card sold, yep that’s right- you buy a card, we plant a tree. You buy 10 cards, we plant 10 trees!

We believe that we should strive to do good at every opportunity, so have tried to make it as easy as possible for us all to create a positive impact on the planet.

We’ve worked in the charitable sector before and know that charities have enough work to do on the ground and fundraising ads to that work. We believe in a new model; one where businesses and consumers work together to fund good causes. When you choose a card with the thought of sending love to a particular person, we strive to amplify that love around the world. Click here to learn more about our tree planting.

Seed Tokens

Bee populations are declining and this is having a devastating effect on the planet. This is such a crucial time and we want to raise awareness by giving people a tangible way to help bees.

Each card comes with a seed token that contains a mix of flowers that bees love. Planted in a pot and put in a garden or window setting, these flowers can provide a much needed snack for our buzzy bee friends while they are hard at work pollinating our planet.

We get our seed paper custom made by a wonderful company in India who are keeping the art of traditional paper making alive and who have won many awards for their eco practices and for bettering the lives of people in rural areas. We did have to compromise on our ‘keep it local’ values by sourcing from India but we believe that, considering the small size of the seed tokens, the benefits make this worthwhile. We ship our seed tokens by Sea to avoid airmiles and we of course plant extra trees to off-set the carbon emissions.