Sustainable Business Practices

Shipping:

  1. Multiple orders shipped together: In case of multiple orders placed by a single customer in a close span of time, we club these orders into a single shipment to reduce the carbon footprint with respect to shipping and processing of the individual shipments.
  2. We pack only in corrugated cardboard boxes. Most of our cardboard boxes are boxes of other brands that we reuse. No plastic bags / Courier envelopes are used for the purpose shipping the goods.
  3. Package Fillers: We don't use bubble wrap or air bags for our shipments. We use old newspapers and corrugated sheets as fillers in all our shipments (except for glass products).
  4. Paper Tapes: We have launched an option of sustainable shipping where we have completely eliminated the plastic tapes with water enforced kraft paper tapes. This option is currently available to all our customers at an additional cost of Rs.25/Shipment for orders upto 3 Kgs.
  5. Surface Mode of Shipping: We ship goods only via surface mode currently. One reason being that it is very cost-efficient in comparison to air shipments. However, it is a also sustainable mode of shipping in comparison to air mode of shipping. Fast delivery via Air Mode comes at a cost; and not just on your pocket but also the environment.

Product Packaging:

  1. Product Labeling: All our product labels are printed on gloss free paper. 
  2. Essential Oils, Carrier oils, Liquid Extracts, Flavour oils, Liquid Extract Blends, Squalane, Essential Oil Blends -10ml, 30ml and 100ml units are packed in glass bottles.
  3. Liquid Extract & Liquid Extract Blends - 10ml and 30ml units are packed in glass bottles.

Sourcing:

  1. We try sourcing most of our goods locally. This helps us reduce the carbon footprint involved in transportation of goods.
  2. We try sourcing directly from manufacturers. This also helps us reduce the carbon footprint of transport at multiple stages (i.e. From Manufacturer-Whole seller-Retailer-Consumer to Manufacturer-The Art Connect-Consumer).
  3. Sourcing in Bulk: We work on sourcing all goods in bulk to reduce packaging waste and also to reduce the carbon footprint with respect to transport of multiple small shipments.
  4. We insist all our manufacturers to avoid single-use/plastic packaging for goods.

Storage:

  1. Containers: All our goods are stored in durable containers. No additional packaging material or single-use containers are used in the storage of goods.

Products:

  1. We source all our glass products from manufacturers who manufacture lead-free glass containers from recycled glass.

In-Office Practices:

  1. Order Processing: All our back-end order processing happens online on cloud.
  2. Invoicing: We only generate invoice copy for our shipping aggregators. The customer copy of tax invoices are emailed to the registered email address.
  3. Resource Consumption: All energy resources at The Art Connect are used judiciously.

Problems we are working on solving:

Here is a list of problems we are currently facing with respect to implementing sustainable business practices:

  1. Primary Product Packaging: Our primary packaging for almost all our products is plastic. The reason being that plastic is light in weight, leak-proof and non-reactive to most of the products. We are however working on eliminating plastic packaging segment by segment.
  2. Product Labeling: We are working on a solution to ensure that the product label ink is chemical-free and sustainable.
  3. Replacing plastic tape packaging with paper tape packaging for bulk shipments.
  4. Glass products packaging: Although glass products are very sustainable ensuring damage-free, sustainable packaging/shipping of these products is a bit challenging.
  5. Requesting shipping partners to accept shipments without invoices with just shipping labels.
  6. Products: We are working on sourcing more organic and sustainably produced goods.

How can you help ?

Be a part of our journey to reduce the carbon footprint. Here is a list of things you can do:

  1. We would love for your suggestions with respect to overcoming the same. Please do email us your suggestions at support@theartconnect.in 
  2. Plan your order well in advance and place a single order in bulk instead of multiple small shipments.
  3. By taking precautionary measure with respect to storage and responsibly disposing off the products as per the respective product MSDS.
  4. Reuse & Renew: Get rewarded for recycling. We are now arranging pickup of our plastic reagent bottles at free of cost for reuse.
    Please note: This is currently applicable only on our plastic reagent bottles. Please refer the picture here.
    Minimum Reagent Bottles for Pickup:50
    Amount of store credit rewarded for each bottle returned: Rs.3
    You can raise your request by emailing us at: support@theartconnect.in
    Please also do send in your complete address with contact number and the dimensions and weight of the box. We will be sending you in the shipping label that can be printed and pasted on the box. Our logistics partner will pickup the same from your location.
    We sterilize the reagent bottles before reuse.