We have always championed the idea of buying less and buying better. We believe that an Orwell + Austen piece isn’t just for one season, but it is rather a garment that you will wear for years to come. With this in mind, we strive to provide our customers with designs that are incredibly versatile and that can be styled effortlessly for an infinite number of occasions, but which also ... feel special and are not trend-dependent. We don't believe in 'retiring' designs just because they are no longer new. In our opinion, great design is great design, and as long as there is demand to continue to make a style, we will do so.

Whilst we are aware that there is a pressure to have more bows and ribbons with products at our price point, we consciously choose to limit our packaging as much as possible in order to minimise waste. Currently, our pieces come wrapped in Orwell + Austen branded recycled tissue paper which goes alongside a recycled paper thank you card inside a biodegradable mailer. We occasionally use a branded recycled gift ... box (though once we have used all of the boxes from our current order we will not be using the gift boxes going forward). 
Our sweaters and cardigans are sent from the factory to us in London in plastic packaging. To ensure that we do not contribute to more plastic going to landfill all of the plastic bags are saved and sent to be recycled by First Mile Recycling. However, this is not a perfect solution and we are currently transitioning to using cotton garment bags. These have been hand made from raw cotton sourced and crafted in Nepal by our partner factory, and hand stamped with the brand logo; with these, we hope to strike a balance between recycled and reusable elements.

The reality of using Nepalese artisans means that our knitwear is transported to the UK by air freight; this generally involves putting shipments on commercial flights, or courier flights when the former isn’t possible. Clearly, this isn’t great for our carbon footprint and is thus a contributing factor in deciding to carbon offset each year. An ideal scenario would be to manufacture closer to home, but the difficulty is how ... we then continue to support both a traditional manufacturing process and our partner factory. We have built a strong, long-lasting relationship with the factory ever since the brand started and, after all, a huge driving force behind what we do is the aim of keeping artisanal traditions alive.
Thus, in order to mitigate our impact as much as possible, we offset our carbon footprint at the end of each year. In 2019, we donated to a reforestation programme and, in 2020, we donated £7,500 to the Pipal Tree Project. This specific donation contributed towards the biodynamic and carbon negative elements of the school project, as well as funding the salaries of two teachers for the next year. We plan to make another donation to this project again in 2022. 
On top of this, we are proud to be members of Ecologi, an organisation who help us to take real action against climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of our small (but mighty) team through donations to carbon offsetting projects.