A vision of sustainability

First and foremost we must ask ourselves what is sustainability?

Sustainability is by definition the ability to maintain any one thing at a certain rate or level. It is the avoidance of depleting natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance.

Ecological balance is the vision Northern Light holds. A way of life that supports and upholds the natural order.

Northern Light as a business has a responsibility to ensure our practices are inline with this natural order, to minimise our potential burden upon the environment.

Since the conception of Northern Light the vision has been clear, to provide you with the worlds purest candle light in such a way that can be sustained for many generations to come. Our mission to provide you with this sustainable light means replacing the ‘convenient’ options with sustainable ones.

What does this involve you may ask?

 

• Packaging

Northern Light packaging is produced within Australia from recycled cardboard and printed with soya inks, all parcels are sealed with paper tape using a 100% natural gum resin. All products are pack directly into these recycled cartons with informative dividers also made from recycled card and printed with soya ink, or within reusable cotton drawstring bags then within the cardboard carton and protected with shredded paper aka ‘fluff’. This fluff is what keeps your order safe even in the roughest of hands without any use of air filled plastic or GMO corn packaging puffs.

• Energy

As Australia’s largest buyer of beeswax our wax melters never stop, if run conventionally on electricity our carbon foot print would increase dramatically and be very damaging to the environment in regard to energy use. Our solution is purpose built melters run via cycling hot water, this hot water is heated by the burning of a waste product abundantly available in our local community… Macadamia shells!

The beauty of this burning process is that very little carbon is released into the atmosphere thanks to the fine tuned parameters which ensure the shells are burnt into charcoal not ash.

By ensuring the macadamia shells are turned into charcoal (which is the carbon) this carbon is captured and placed back into the soil within the onsite organic gardens to further encourage the soil biodiversity.

It is actions like this combined with the planting of trees onsite to capture any potential carbon emissions that reflect the core values of Northern Light.

• Water

Northern Light installed rainwater tanks the moment our studio was built, never will the beeswax we care for come into contact with chemical laden town water. Beeswax is primarily two acids and will absorb most constituents it comes into contact with, this includes any chemicals present within water such as chlorine.

Our water is filtered many times through a series of filters as well as via sedimentation, charcoal, blue metal and fine sand, every year our tanks and filters are cleaned and treated with organic tea tree tea.

 

• Production methods

Inventor of the beeswax tea light and home to the worlds only beeswax tea light machine, Northern Light once more increases our sustainability by relieving our staff of burdensome repetitive actions. Run upon compressed air and the finest robotic technology available, this wonder filled invention saves our staff from one of Australia’s most common workplace injury’s, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). Our staff are treated in a supportive and respectful manner to ensure their satisfaction within the work environment. Northern Light is a joyous place to work where staff encourage each others growth.

 

• Recycling

All cardboard waste is attended to in such a way that ensures it will be recycled correctly.

Office items such as batteries and old ink cartridges are collected and recycled at the appropriate recycling centers.

Currently unavoidable soft plastics from items such as the backs of dymo shipping labels and soft plastic wrap received around the tones of beeswax pallets, are collected and recycled via the Red Cycle or Richmond waste soft plastic collection services, Northern Light envisions a future where all forms of plastic are replaced by compostable solutions.

 

• Product

Commitment to the creation of a environmentally friendly product has always been at the for front of Northern Light’s vision. Beeswax as a natural raw product is the most environmentally friendly wax available, this product can be used without any form of filtration or refinement unlike conventional and trending alternative wax options. It is important to understand that all wax excluding beeswax requires an intensive process of manipulation to create a ‘clean’ product, this involves exposing the crude material to extreme levels of heavy metals, heat and pressure, bleaching or chemical washing and often adulteration with common paraffin wax due to its cost effectiveness.

 

Northern Light has and will only ever supply our valued customers with the purest product available, our values stand for a candle light crafted from Pure Australian beeswax attended to with the utmost attentive care, free from all forms of adulteration, coloration or decorative paints. The health of our children, families and community at large are of greater importance than the VOC’s ( volatile organic compounds ) emitted as gasses through fire decomposition of these ‘decorative’ substances or alternative waxes.

Read more here.

 

As technology improves and our awareness is broadened new goals are set to keep Northern Light on path to higher levels of sustainability.

Many challenges are set before us, yet together we can create new systems, products and ethics to align with a sustainable, clean, green future for all.

Made by Australian Bees, Trees and Hands, Northern Light is a vision of sustainability.