Sustainability

Why 1% of revenue?

For businesses of any size, 1% of sales – not profits – is a real and substantial commitment. You can always give more, but you should never give less than 1%.

Currently, only 3% of philanthropic giving goes to the environment. Our planet needs more support and the 1% for the Planet network is on a mission to change that.

Why Protect Earth?

We wanted to give back more than we were taking when printing a physical book. We used to ‘plant a tree for every order’ using tree-planting companies and charities such as Ecologi and Tree Nation. However, these schemes have a very low cost per tree, and the ‘real cost’ of tree planting with local charities is much higher.

Instead, we now partner with Protect Earth, a charity our Software Developer Duncan works closely with, who plant trees across the UK. Although we are printing a physical book, we can ensure we are having a net positive impact by supporting this project.

Why just the book?

1% of revenue works out as a much higher percentage of profits. As we have self-published our book, we have a larger profit margin, so giving 1% of revenue is sustainable as a business. In comparison, the rest of our business is high cost, low margin, as we offer our electrical design service completely for free. Each system is comparatively higher value, and the margin needs to support our team of 14.

While we were full 1% members for 2 years, 1% of revenue now makes up too much of our margin to be able to sustain our team. However, we’re still keen to give back as much as we can, so we still make a yearly donation to the Honnold Foundation.

Why Honnold Foundation?

The Honnold Foundation was set up by climber Alex Honnold to support community organisations who use solar energy to improve lives and reduce environmental impact. This felt like the perfect partnership – through helping others to realise the dream of van life, we can also help communities all over the world to access clean and affordable energy.