The Mountains are Burning

I live on the Welsh borders in the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), under the same hills I was born under in 1980 and returned to nearly ten years ago with my young family in tow. 

When my son was born in Abergavenny Hospital in 2018 I remember being riddled with climate anxiety. Sitting in bed breastfeeding with waves of intense fear for the future for my kids washing over me. I galvanised myself into action as soon as I could, taking part in Greta's school strikes, speaking at the local council and trying to make as much noise as I could. As my life got busier with two young children in tow and then covid and breast cancer came along, I found less time and brain space to dedicate myself to being active and I think somewhere in me a protective film surrounded me. A film that prevented me from investing too deeply in news stories that were occupied with our planet's growing troubles. I have carried an inward guilt that I couldn't do more, that work and home life took so much of my time that I couldn't also care for our greatest home of all in the way I wanted to. 

This summer though, the climate has come knocking fiercely at our door. Showing us a glimpse of the extremities it is capable of handing out to everyone, regardless of our contribution to our heating world. Below, the valley in front of me has been filled with heavy smoke from fires on nearby hills for the last couple of weeks.

Owning a business, caring deeply for our planet and trying to sell products that directly draw on our world's natural resources feels like an impossible and unsolvable puzzle. Forivor was born out of a desire to build a better textile industry that could also nurture a love of nature and drive creativity where it is so desperately needed to solve our planets problems. This however does not negate the fact that our business is involved in an intensely resource heavy industry with textiles contributing to a staggering 10% of global carbon emissions. We of course try to avoid air shipping as much as is possible but there are instances where we simply have to - like parcels that are too small to send by sea (often samples and small international stockist orders) or when production has run late (this happens frequently in the textile trade) and you have to meet customer demand or disrupt your cashflow so much it would destroy your business. 

There are many things we try and do to reduce our impact including using organic cotton which is considered to significantly reduce carbon emissions and we are actively working towards sourcing regenerative cotton for our products which will make an even greater difference.

Regardless of how much we try to do to minimise our impact, a capitalist model is inherently unsustainable and we have been discussing what we can do as a business. We always try to create designs that are multipurpose and well made to survive cross generational use and perhaps most importantly be pieces that people truly connect to and treasure.

Alice and I have always said we don't want to chase endless growth for Forivor. At the moment we need to continue to expand so that we can ensure a decent salary for ourselves and our team but we hope to find a point in the future where we have a small and well sustained team and rest the business there without chasing endless expansion. I'm not sure this balance is an easy thing to achieve but we hoped by writing this here on the blog it in someway holds us accountable to try to find a way. 

The main driving force for writing today was however a strong belief that we must all voice our concerns and our desires for our planet. As much as we as individuals and small businesses can try and do to make a difference it is now time for our political leaders to understand that we the people want them to speak up and voice the concerns we all have as we see our mountains and forests burning in ways they simply never have before.

We have become too accustomed to carrying the burden of action on our own shoulders rather than being able to adhere to policies set out by our policymakers to create a greater equality in the way action is undertaken to restore our planet. Laws on plastic bag sales here in the UK clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of policies for reducing impact at scale by reducing plastic bag usage by 98%. Our leaders need to be creating more policies like this that have an impact at scale whilst also holding big businesses to account for their impact on the environment - like water companies who are profiting whilst infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading to preserve water and energy. 

Please write to your MP to ask for immediate action and acknowledgement of the climate emergency, share on social media, talk to your friends and make the conversation burn even stronger than the hills are now. Please let us know how you've been feeling also if you'd like to by replying to this email and any ways in which you'd like to see us act as a business. 

One simple step we have taken in terms of our digital footprint which has even saved us money is to have the entire Forivor team using Ecosia as our web browser and to use Ecotalk for my mobile phone. Both these companies are prioritising the planet in a digital space and choosing them sends a very important message.