Naked Cards, a campaign initiated by some like-minded card publishers to push to move away from cellowrapping cards is gaining support by the day.
In the last few days, since the campaign officially launched (through a dedicated website and social media activity), it has gained global support from those wishing to take the ‘naked oath’, attracting over 400 followers on Instagram alone.
Spearheaded by card publishers and online sellers, Becka Griffin of Becka Griffin Illustration and Louise Verity of Bookishly, with support from six fellow small business owners, these Naked Pioneers are on a mission to galvanise support, initially from the online community to stop selling cards in cellobags.
“The thought process started with a New Year’s’ Resolution to explore all of my domestic purchasing decisions,” said Becka revealing what prompted the idea for the Naked Cards campaign. “This led to me looking at the purchases I was making for my business too.” As part of this, Becka started to explore biodegradable cellos, and trialled these early in January, but she did not feel this was the solution.
“Most of my sales are online direct to the customer, so I was sitting there, cello-bagging each card, then folding a delivery note round it and then putting it into a board-backed envelope,” explains Becka. It was spotting a post from Michelle Prinold of VanillaRetro Stationery sharing a poll, asking her customers if they would object to being sent a greeting card without a cello that was the lightbulb moment for Becka who made contact with Michelle, expanded the survey to include her customers.
“More people contacted me, and more sellers expressed an interest in the concept. Before I knew it we had a good number of people who had surveyed their customers, and overwhelmingly customers were really onboard with the idea of cutting down on unnecessary waste,” summed up Becka.
The thrust of the campaign is simple. “Basically, all we ask people to do is to pledge not to cello any more cards,” says Becka. “For embellished or delicate cards, we’ve agreed that paper bags are okay – as they can either be reused or recycled very easily.”
At present the Naked Cards campaign is concentrating on online sales, however the Naked Pioneers would love it to expand into ‘bricks and mortar’ retail. However the campaigners accept this “will be a much trickier conversion as over-handling, lost envelopes and storing stock are huge worries for shop owners.”
Part of Becka’s big dream is “for ‘nakedness’ to become the norm when it comes to online card sales. We all have a responsibility to reduce our waste – and it’s important to remember it’s not just the individual plastic cello that is wasted, but also the energy that goes into producing, transporting and storing it. It also saves so much time not celloing cards – not to mention no more annoying static strips!”
Other Naked Pioneers include Do You Punctuate? Mollycat Craft Co and Zoe Brennan.
As Zoe said: ‘While we understand it’s not for everyone we know it’s an important step in the right direction for card publishers. We have a duty to be responsible, after all, we only have one Earth! By helping to educate and inform we can reduce our plastic waste, one cello at a time.”
For more info see www.nakedcards.com as well as the campaign’s Facebook and Instagram channels.
