Verifiable green actions move the needle when it comes to building a credible green transition. Through our certifications, tools, and initiatives, you can see the work we’re doing in the areas of governance, how we contribute to the economic and social wellbeing of our workforce and the communities in which we operate, environmental sustainability, and how we improve the value we create for our customers.

We’ve made good progress in all areas, and we’ve gained experience and knowledge along the way. There is always room for improvement, and we have set ourselves even more ambitious goals going forward.

Our work with SBTi, B Corp and Blockchain forms the foundation of our blueprint for sustainability.

Third-party certification gives you, the consumer or customer, the assurance that our products reach high standards of safety, reliability, and quality.

We work with two sets of drivers: purpose and profit. We have identified five stakeholder impact areas: governance, environment, workers, community, and customers. When we develop or implement initiatives, whether they’re related to our methods, products or materials, we consider all stakeholders, seeking solutions that benefit everyone.

The UN SDGs framework is also an integrated part of our work with stakeholder impact areas. We focus on three UN SDGs that are most relevant to our business: SDG 12, 15 and 17. Within these, we have defined specific targets to achieve. Link to our SDG report to read more about the progress we have made towards these SDG goals.

Our primary focus is to do better for all our stakeholders. As a B Corp company, we’ve grouped our stakeholders in line with the B Labs framework as we believe that B Corp is a good fit for us in terms of values, goals, and structure. Find out more about the initiatives and tools we have implemented in each stakeholder area.

Our actions, initiatives and memberships enhance our policies and practices pertaining to our mission, ethics, accountability, and transparency.

Documenting our work within sustainability is part of our DNA and developing a blockchain tool is the next step on that journey. We are driving forward in this area and have launched the first iteration of our Blockchain app. Its potential to digitally document, verify and store all relevant data related to our production process, gives our customers, partners and suppliers full transparency and traceability of all activities within our supply chain in one place.

Product certification sets a benchmark for product quality, giving you the assurance that our products are well-made, safe and reliable. At SproutWorld, our certifications are controlled by independent third-party organizations. Our products are EN71-1,2,3 certified, REACH compliant in the relevant category, and AllergyCertified.

Our membership of B Corp is certified by a third party, guaranteeing that we meet high standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability to balance profit and purpose.

The Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) of our pencils and makeup liners are undertaken by a third party and use a standardized method to quantitatively assess the environmental impact at each stage of a product’s life cycle and consider all aspects of its fabrication.

We have introduced climate accounting in our business, using the globally recognized framework of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Once we have established our climate accounting processes, we will prepare our own climate accounts and begin implementing them with our financial reporting.

Our workers at SproutWorld and at the production sites are the core of the business, and we work with different initiatives to contribute to their financial, physical, professional, and social wellbeing.

Our primary production site is in Poland, and we have a secondary production site in the US. In Europe, we work with a Polish pencil manufacturer with over 100 years’ experience and craftmanship. Both our production sites are family-owned businesses and have signed our Code of Conduct.

We are a member of the UN Global Compact, with a particular focus on upholding human rights, environment, labor conditions and anti-corruption, and incorporate these principles within our strategies, policies, and operations. We are members of Sedex, committed to operating ethical supply chains. Both our sites are audited by a third party against SMETA 4 PILLARS.

We think globally and act locally. We wish to contribute to the economic and social wellbeing of the communities in which we operate. Our flagship partnership is with the Polish State Forest, from where the wood for our pencils originates.

We chose to engage with the Forest Carbon Farms Project in collaboration with the Polish State Forest because we want to support and give back locally where we take resources. Through this project, new forests will be planted and in time, absorb CO2eq, store water, produce oxygen, and contribute to greater biodiversity for various forest species.

We are devoted to improving our overall environmental stewardship. Here are some of the actions we have taken.

The wood from our pencils and makeup liners are sustainably harvested. Our pencils are made from PEFC or FSC certified wood, meaning that every time a tree is harvested, another one is planted. SproutWorld’s seed capsules are made from soluble cellulose and are produced under FairTSA Socially Responsible Processing.

Our pencils are carbon neutral. This was a significant milestone on our sustainability journey. Using an independent Life Cycle Assessment, analyzing every step of the product life cycle, we were able to calculate the carbon emissions of one SproutWorld pencil.

One pencil has a carbon footprint of 3.64g CO2eq. We compensate for the CO2 footprint we cannot avoid within our current production process by purchasing carbon credits. Through our partnership with the Polish State Forest, we gained 1,516 Carbon Dioxide Units (CDUs), equivalent to 1,516,000 tons of CO2. Our Climate Impact Calculator shows how much of these credits we have used so far based on the number of pencils produced.

Our production sites are located close to the forests where we get our materials from, and we strive to purchase local, both to minimize our transport emissions and to support local communities.

A portion of our climate footprint comes from freight transport so it’s a top priority for us to reduce the CO2eq in this area. We ship all our business-to-business orders via a carbon neutral shipment program in partnership with UPS, and continuously work to reduce CO2 emissions attached to the delivery of our goods.